The Quarterly Journal Spring 1994
Volume
I
Quarterly Journal itary History
6,
Number
3
of Military History
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military
History
Pro— German Governments
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A NOTE TO OUR READERS A
great latter-day invasion
Normandy that
about to take place in a couple of months, as thousands prepare to descend
is
for the fiftieth anniversary of
would be missing the
point.
D-Day. You could
call it a geriatric
men
hard to associate
It's
mob
scene in the making,
in their seventies (and the
women
behind) with the strained, eager young faces that will forever stare out of photographs.
Norman
sociate that lovely rustic
some
countryside,
most violent summer
in the
The summer
to
new
the subject of this special issue of
is
MHQ, and
hundreds of thousands but to the millions. According to Gerhard
not just to the terial
fact that these
history of
earth, with
men once
1
took p
in history.
Europe
of 1944 in
—or with the
I
hard, too, to
and best-kept hectares on
of the richest
nightmarish hedgerow labyrinth that they fought through
It's
\
they once
World War
II,
A World at Arms (Cambridge
one and a half million German troops were
killed,
L.
its
casualty
add
lists
Weinberg, in his mag
University Press), anywhere from a milli
wounded, or captured between June and the middle
September. Russian losses in the same period ran into the hundreds of thousands. The combined losses the Western Allies in
The
in the world.
And we can never
the European theaters was well over 200,000.
all
perished in the Nazi death camps. But then, that
summer was
were not just routing but annihilating the Japanese
British
island-hopping campaign in the Pacific was gathering
its
forget those
a time of extraordinary violence
invincible
in
v\
everywh
Burma. The Americ
momentum. Only
in
China did
Japanese manage to sustain an offensive reminiscent of the threat that once was.
Though we hardly understood Cold War.
A
it
then, the stage was being set for another epic ideological conflict.
few people like Field Marshal Erwin
Rommel seemed
to grasp that prospect,
pared to do anything to ensure that the Western Allies reached Berlin before the Soviets.
happened
he had not sustained a near-mortal wound on July 17? Would he have been able to put
if
his inchoate
"suicided"
scheme
him
a
to let the Allies
month
through? Or would Hitler's
men
What chance
summer
Germans have
did the
own
confront again on their
that
we must
turf?
Was
deliberately call a halt in front of
of 1944?
sible.
at the
He
is
Weinberg
first
confront, though few of
Germans
squarely in
end of the
finish," Liddell
the
it?
all:
Germans were
S. Patton, Jr.'s said,
when
—a hard core that we woi
let
most
of an
army get away? Did
Stc
in the Polish cap
Marshall Brement argues in these pages that he didn't,
1
Union may hold the answer
Could the Western powers have ended the war early
in
in
is
such a
state of
shock that a determined push into
Army might have done the trick. "The best chance lost when the 'gas' was turned off from Ration's tanks
Third
"was probably
they were a hundred miles nearer the Rhine, and
other military historians are as quick to argue that logistics gas, but not the
them admit
one writer who believes that an early victory was p the camp of the eminent military historian B.H. Liddell Hart, who maintained t
summer
Hart
of August,
we
aren't so sure; only the archives of the former Soviet
the greatest question of
is
it) h,
Normandy? Could we h
encouraging a noncommunist uprising
The always contentious Caleb Carr
homeland by George week
Warsaw,
sitting by while the Nazis destroyed
Then there
the Argentines put
the other D-Day, the Riviera invasion, necessary? Did the gaining
the ports of Marseilles and Toulon counterbalance the fact that
fall
(as
of repelling the invasion in
closed the Falaise gap, thus preventing the escape of thousands of
historians like
simply
h.
togetl
or so earlier than they did?
These are the sort of questions about that definite answers.
and then
and he was p
What would
means
of transporting
it.
made
its
of a
th
qu
in the
bridges, than the British."
victory in 1944 impossible.
We
I
1
had
Coalition warfare did not permit the freeing of one arm>
the logistical price of immobilizing the rest.
And what
if
Patton had penetrated Germany?
Wo
he have risked another Anzio?
But these concerns probably won't matter to most of the
John Keegan,
in the introduction to the
new
men who
edition of his Six
will
Armies
in
return to Normandy this Jun( Normandv (Viking/Penguin),
MHQ: The
Quarterly Journal of Military History
/
Spring 1994
Publisher
Byron Hollinshead Editor
EUROPE
Robert Cowley
IN
THE SUMMER OF
1944:
A SPECIAL ISSUE
Managing Editor Barbara Benton Senior Editor
Richard Slovak /
OVERLORD
Art Director
Marleen Adlerblum
by Williamson Murray
The
Allied invasion of France
dent military events of our time, and
Picture Editor
Susan Chitwood
Europe
it
would
was one
of the transcen-
alter the political landscape of
for decades.
Picture Consultant
Linda Sykes
/
Photosearch
22
Picture Researcher
Kate Lewin
/
/
THE AIRBORNE'S WATERY TRIUMPH
Paris
by T. Michael Booth and Duncan Spencer Small actions can have big results, as James Gavin and the 82nd Airborne proved in the confused series of actions that centered on the fight for the bridge at La Fiere.
Editorial Assistant
Edna Shalev Contributing Editors
E. Ambrose, Caleb Carr, David Chandler, Arther Ferrill, Thomas Fleming, Victor Davis Hanson, David Kahn, John Keegan, Richard H. Kohn, David Clay Large, Jay Luvaas, John A. Lynn, Williamson Murray, Geoffrey Norman, Robert L. O'Connell, Geoffrey Parker, Rod Paschall, H. Darby Perry, Douglas Porch, Willard Sterne Randall, Stephen W. Sears, Ronald H. Spector, Geoffrey C. Ward
Stephen
34
by Don Cook Even as paratroops were dropping on Normandy, Winston Churchill flew into an unexpected tempest: the rage of Charles de Gaulle. What happened that night goes far to explain French behavior in the years that followed.
42
Advisory Board
Elihu Rose, Chairman David S. Croyder, Thaddeus Holt, Samuel Hynes, Paul Kennedy. William McNeill, Allan R. Millett, Al Silverman, Norman Tomlinson
American
a nuclear "poison" or
PEPPERMINT AND ALSOS
an atomic weapon. Undercover detection units accom-
panied the invasion.
48
Chairman Elihu Rose
/
ROMMEUS LAST BATTLE
by Sir David Eraser Normandy must be counted as one of his most brilliant campaigns though he knew all along that it was hopeless and talked openly of surrender. Nothing, he believed, was more important than keeping the
—
President
Byron Hollinshead Circulation Director
T.
/
Eisenhower's secret fear was that the Germans had created
by Ferenc M. Szasz
Historical Publications, Inc.
Eugenia
"SEND HIM BACK TO ALGIERS— IN CHAINS IF NECESSARY."
/
Soviets out of Berlin.
Hayes
Production Director
58
Karen Romano Accountant and Oflice Manager
FAIA'SE-
Tw^
^c»AP
NOT SPRUNG
by Carlo D'Este Could the greatest Allied victory in France that summer have been even greater? Perhaps. Or was it in reality a colossal blunder? The author
Tess Navarrete Business Manager
George Brown, CPA
MHQ
/
says no, emphatically.
©
1994 by American Historical Publications,
Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the
United States of America.
—
Published in association with the Society for Military History
"0/
Volume
6,
Number
3
THE OTHER D-DAV
Most people think of the Riviera invasion in August if they think of it at all as a walkover in the sun. It wasn't, and the worst part was that we let most of a German army get away.
by Willard Sterne Randall
—
80
/
WHY DIDNT THE SOVIETS TAKE WARSAW?
by Marshall Brement
Conspiracy theorists have long claimed that Stalin delib-
down an anticommunist uprising in the Polish end of their mightiest offensive of the war, had
erately permitted the Nazis to put capital. literally
But the Soviets, run out of gas.
at the
Cover: In this detail from Dwight
90
/
Green Beach,
by Caleb Carr It seemed possible that the war could have ended that autumn but for an Allied strategic miscalculation and a determined old man who rallied the beaten
German army
in the
Bombardment
Shepler's
THE BLACK KNIGHT
June
1944
7,
it is
at
Fox
the afternoon of
— D-Day plus one.
Though the Omaha beachhead has been secured, and American troops
West.
have reached the crest of the
98
/
THE FORGOTTEN CAMPAIGN
by Ken McCormick and Hamilton Darby Perry By the summer of 1944, the war in Italy, once so strategically promising, had degenerated into a costly and sterile stalemate. But it was one that a Canadian painter, Lawren P. Harris, evoked vividly and unforgettably.
bluffs,
landing craft shuttling back and forth
must
German
still
run a gauntlet of
artillery fire.
—
MHQ:
The Quarterly Journal of Military History (ISSN 1040-5992) is published four times a year
DERARTIUFNTC;
by American Historical Publications. rial
and executive
New /
TACTICAL EXERCISES: The
by Rod Paschall
Failure of Market-Garden
Built-in tactical limitations
parachute, glider, and tank assault of
all
doomed
the largest coordinated
time.
mark
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Military History
by Christine Ammer World War II produced many words and expressions that have permanently entered our language— including D-Day itself.
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MHQ
lOvERLORD In an enormous battle of attrition, the Western Allies fought the Germans to exhaustion and collapse, and altered the political landscape of Europe. by Williamson Murray
^
{ a radio speech to the French in Oc-
tober 1940, Winston Churchill prom-
Inised:
to gath-
"Good night then: Sleep
er strength for the
morning
will
morning. For the
come. Brightly
will
it
shine on the brave and the true, kindly
upon
all
who
suffer for the cause, glori-
ous upon the tombs of heroes. Thus, will shine the
June
6,
dawn."
Dawn came on
1944, four long years after the
Germans had
expelled the British
army
postwar implications,
its
Soviet Union. In examining this great undertaking,
the return to the Continent
must
the historian
face a
number of imGermans
portant questions: Could the
have won? Could the Americans have covered from a defeat on
Omaha
re-
beach?
What
opportunities did the Allies miss
in the
Normandy campaign? And
finally,
with the advantage of forty years of historical research,
ship stack
from the Continent. In terms of
forty-five years, until the collapse of the
mandy
up
how
in its
does Allied leader-
conduct of the Nor-
battle?
—Operation
— represented the
on Dieppe
in
portant effort of the war that Anglo-
August 1942, Allied planners thought
in
American military forces executed. The Battle of the Atlantic was the most cru-
terms of seizing a French port
Overlord
most im-
Until the ill-fated raid
at the
outset to build up forces faster than the
the winning of the war
Germans. But the defenders of Dieppe,
and Americans waged.
mostly third-rate infantry, used the
Without control of the North Atlantic,
port's built-up areas to prevent the
bombing nor Overlord
Canadian raiders from even crossing the
cial battle for
that the British
neither strategic
would have been
possible.
But victory
in the Atlantic only established the pre-
beach wall
—except
as prisoners. Conse-
quently, the planners had to alter their
conditions on which the continuance of
conceptions: Invasion forces not only
aid to the Soviet Union, the strategic
would have
to cross
open beaches, but
Germany, and the launch-
then would have to rely during the
ing of Overlord could take place. Simi-
buildup phase on a supply system that
bombing larly,
of
the combined
bomber
offensive
lacked a port. That second problem,
how
achieved air supremacy over Europe
to support a massive battle with a logisti-
and battered the German economy
cal
verely.
But
se-
neither of these great efforts
gained the political goals for which the
system that ran over beaches, raised
a nightmare of technical
and engineer-
ing problems never before addressed.
United States and Britain waged World
War
II:
tary
and
namely, the projection of milipolitical
power on the ground
into the heart of Europe,
where that
MHQ
fighter with British
roundels, plus
D-Day
wings and fuselage,
stripes
flies
on
its
low over
political
landing craft unloading troops and
interests for the next
vehicles onto the invasion beaches.
power secured Anglo-American
and economic
A Mustang
power. The Luftwaffe, which
air
had been holding
its
strength in the
Reich, quickly deployed
its
formidable
forces to forward operating locations in
France.
fighters then shot
Its
down 106
that objective, Tedder
To achieve
Dieppe raised a third problem: Ger-
man
Eisenhower had
bomber barons.
battle with the
and
to fight a considerable
Command, agreed
Sir Ar-
Bomber
thur Harris, chief of the British
that his planes could
such targets as marshaling yards
hit
in
Allied aircraft, with the loss of only
France, but he argued that they might
twenty-one fighters and twenty-seven
kill
bombers; German bombers did consid-
the process. Churchill, desperately wor-
erable
damage
to the Allied fleet
even sank a destroyer. Allied air forces
was
It
would have
and
clear that to achieve
Frenchmen
tens of thousands of
political implications of
about the
ried
such losses
in
in the
postwar world, came
close to forbidding the attacks.
western France were particularly tive;
effec-
by mid-June, the trains that might
have supplied the defenders in Nor-
mandy no down the
railroads, the air
forced the
Germans
where
longer operated. By shutting
campaign
on the roads,
Allied tactical air strikes prevent-
movement by
ed
to rely
day. Destruction of
bridges and attacks on roads
tremely
difficult for
made
it
ex-
panzer divisions to
reach the battlefield.
But Har-
But American strategic bombing had
general air superiority over the whole
ris
was being completely disingenuous:
rendered an even more important con-
continent before a successful landing
As he admitted after the war, he had no
tribution to Overlord. The massive air
could occur. Dieppe, however, did have
forces compelled the Luftwaffe to defend
concluded that a major port would be
compunction about blasting the "French who had run away in 1940." More to the point. Bomber Command's
the focus of any landing, and this would
estimates of so-called collateral
greatly aid the deception plans in 1944.
were based on the massive
one unexpected benefit: The Germans
By 1943,
Normandy Calais
ed a
was closer
more
had selected
Allied planners
as the invasion target. Pas-de-
England and provid-
to
direct route to the Reich, but
those very advantages guaranteed that the
Germans would concentrate
their
defensive buildup in that area. As late as
raids of
700
Bomber
then executed several small-
which more than con-
scale test raids,
firmed Tedder's estimate that relatively
damage would
collateral
In the end, the
Combined
Chiefs of
fantry divisions at the beaches, with a
forces of both nations
drop of one airborne division. To the
and Tedder's command. With Eisenhow-
supreme commander. General Dwight
er's
under Eisenhower
permission. Lieutenant General Carl
Spaatz ordered his American bombers to
German
land forces, General Bernard Mont-
attack
gomery, that was the recipe
May. Meanwhile, other Allied
disaster:
the
Combined
Chiefs of Staff an increase
and three
to five infantry divisions
borne. Air
commanders
Leigh-Mallory, air forces,
air-
objected to the
when
airdrop, but even
would
for military
They demanded and got from
Sir Trafford
commanding
the Allied
estimated the paratroops
suffer
90 percent
losses, Eisen-
hower backed Montgomery
in his re-
quest for a massive airborne operation.
If
the
Germans
cessfully utilized the road
and
rail
than the
Allies.
As a
chief deputy, the
Normandy
result,
oil facilities in
air
power
of France's transportation
system, since the planners did not wish to give
away the invasion
terdiction
target.
The
in-
campaign ranged across the
length and breadth of France, and for
most
way
the
to Berlin. In Febru-
fighter pilots
on
percent of
its
active duty at the be-
ginning of the month; in March, 22 per-
units in the Reich lost no less than 38
percent of their percent.
pilots);
and
fly
On June
6,
as an
even over the
effective defensive force
Reich.
May, 25
in
The Luftwaffe collapsed
Allied air forces
would
no fewer than 14,000 missions
support the invasion. hand, Luftflotte
3, in
On
charge of the
battle in France, could not get
sorties over
Normandy,
were by single-engine
of
to
the other air
even 100
which 70
fighters.
In the crucial matter of logistics, the
campaign had exacerbated
Allied air
The
one of the great weaknesses of the Ger-
combination of Bomber Command's
mans throughout the war. The Germans paid minimal attention to their
the
part
it
achieved
goals.
its
heavy night attacks against marshaling
arrangements, while the Allies
yards, the Eighth Air Force's daylight
logistical
bombing
possessed a resilient and deep supply
of other rail targets,
and
tacti-
And in the end, the battle for Normandy and France would turn on
net-
collapse of the French
the ability of the contending sides to re-
re-
faster
Eisenhower's
renowned
all
all
ary, the Luftwaffe lost 18
freight cars, as well as bridges, caused a
works of western France, they could inforce their units in
focused on
synthetic
bombers
suc-
The buildup phase was a daunting obstacle to planners.
air of-
bombers
cent; in April, 20 percent (but fighter
occur.
Staff placed all the strategic-bombing
and the commander of
fensive of 1943, U.S. strategic
received cover from long-range fighters;
invasion called for landing only three in-
D. Eisenhower,
continued sur-
depended. Unlike the costly
by March, P-51s were accompanying
Command
the end of the year, the concept for the
its
air
was launching against Ger-
it
that Tedder was proposing.
little
the factories on which vival
and Fifteenth
rather than on the smaller raids
bombers
many
damage
offensive by the Eighth
Air Chief
locomotives and
cal strikes against
rail
system. By
when Allied air forces began an intensive campaign to destroy the late
May,
system.
inforce
and supply the frontline troops
locked in combat. Previous operations
had
had solved most of the problems of am-
declined to 55 percent of January's lev-
phibious warfare by June 1944; the Al-
bridges over the Seine,
The wrecking
rail traffic
Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, developed a
els.
plan to use Allied air power, including
reduced that
the "strategic" bombers, to destroy the
6,
French transportation network before
to 10 percent of
the landings occurred.
beginning of the year. The attacks
and by
of the Seine bridges
level to
30 percent by June
early July rail traffic
what
it
had
had been
fallen at the
in
lies
had
which
to
a
wealth of experience on
draw from the
lantic theaters
Pacific
and At-
— including four major
landings in the European theater of operations (ETO)
—while the great Indus-
trial
establishments of Britain and
some
the United States had provided
He
their logistical capabilities to bear.
recognized that
Germans
the
if
did not
undergunned and not so well protected.
The
Allies did possess great
numerical
which would even-
unique solutions, including the cre-
defeat the invasion in the first days of
ation of two great artificial harbors.
the fighting, they would lose the war.
tually tell in the battle of attrition.
the other hand, the supreme
was small comfort
On
the ground, however, the
soldier
remained the best
in
German
Europe. His
training, his officers, the coherent
com-
bat doctrine of his units, and the brutal,
him
ruthless ideology that motivated
ensured that he would be extraordinari-
Moreover, the
ly effective in battle.
On comman-
der in the West, Field Marshal Gerd von
German
Rundstedt, believed that the
army should fight a mobile battle in which its tactical and operational strengths would come into play. But nei-
Rommel nor Rundstedt
ther
possessed
topography of Normandy, with bocage (hedgerow) country and
its
the freedom needed to fight the battle.
its
Hitler
small villages and sturdy farmhouses,
all
high
of
which were wonderful strongpoints maximized the inher-
for the defender,
ent strength of the
German
soldier
and
his tactical system.
Through
1943 the Germans used
late
France as a place to rebuild units that fighting tered.
on the Eastern Front had shat-
Moreover,
German engineers had work on the
only begun preparatory tifications
for-
along the beaches. The Ger-
mans gambled
that the Allies could not
take advantage of their
was
weak
position in
ment
and the
OKW
command) of German
(the
armed
forces
controlled the placereserves,
and only they
had the authority to release panzer
divi-
superiority in tanks,
armor
But no defect was greater than the
The British and Canadian armies had had four years
too
to prepare for the landing
They had focused, however,
in France.
much on
the landing phase and not
enough on preparations
would
that
attacks and reinforcements. This ar-
ployment
rangement was one
ing in
nesses on the
of the greatest weak-
German
and
As usual
side.
in senior positions after fail-
command assignments. The Britcorps commander whose troops
ish
command,
could not seal off Falaise in August was
Hitler's directives, to say the least,
General Sir Neal Ritchie, responsible for
there was no clear chain of
could be bizarre. His desire to control everything deprived
Rommel
of the op-
portunity to place the bulk of his
army
immediately
in position to intervene
May 1942 debacle
the
less
chance of preventing
But Allied commanders had considerable problems of their own. At the oper-
soon. Consequently, the buildup of the
ational level, few understood
Wehrmacht
how
best
in the
West received highest
to utilize the mobility of their forces or,
German
forces in France un-
among
to
Erwin
command Army Group
B,
across the north of France, and the coastal defenses that
would most
receive the assault.
Rommel brought
likely
how much
senior officers,
face of battle
had changed
the
in the last
At lower
the British possessed
levels,
common
doctrine for the combined-
and one of the most overrated
officers in the war,
announced
to
war
of
ican generals in April, the
fight in
that had characterized the
have 12 million to 15 million mines
campaign
sown along the beaches of France, to emplace tens of thousands of poles
view of such attitudes
("Rommel's asparagus")
slow methodical advance to the
in fields
behind
glider landings,
number
and
to erect a
of obstacles in the water
huge
and on
the beaches to hinder landings.
Rommel
ing air and logistical superiority that the Allies
would bring
to the battle.
mand,
in 1940.
logistical
frontier, a
He
German system managed. Hard, tough, realistic training
seems
to have
tirely a hit-or-miss affair.
action reports by
German
the
in fighting the British in
Nor-
that reached
beyond explanations attributing
army's social position in British society.
German in
high com-
German
autumn
one sense, Brooke was
1918.
right:
The
came ashore possessed
Even the basic building block, infantry tactics,
seemed
showed weaknesses: the
on
to rely
little
British
more than
a
straightforward rush and the hope that the artillery had to bits. As
smashed the Germans
one division commander
noted to Basil Liddell Hart after the war:
equipment was
much
have already told you
how shocked
I
was
at
Kingdom when
I
met the 44
Div, 51 Div,
56
Div (not to speak of 50 Div which learnt
inferior to that of
nothing, ever, even after years in the desert.
Wehrmacht. The most egregious
ex-
aimed, therefore, to defeat the invaders
ample
on the beaches before they could bring
had been throughout the war, remained
lay in Allied
I
the meagre results of training in the United
of
considerable weaknesses. Even their
after-
military units
moveFrance
planners prepared for a
closely resembled that of
In
well
been en-
The
such flaws to prewar funding or the
Not surprisingly in the
level of
campaign that would have
Allied forces that
recognized the overwhelm-
same high
Amer-
would not see the lightning advances
potential landing areas to interfere with
rarely reached the
consistency and effectiveness that the
mandy suggest problems
nized the preparations. By the time the to
various branch-
engaged
ment was over and the
Fox hoped
its
few years. As Sir Alan Brooke (later Lord
with him a restless energy that galva-
Allies invaded, the Desert
of
As a result, British army training
Alanbrooke), chief of the Imperial General Staff
to de-
stroying the Eighth Army.
es.
recognized that an invasion was coming
at El Gazala,
where Rommel had come close
in
begun. But by early 1944, the Germans
Rommel
of
Brooke's friends found continuing em-
arms employment
Hitler appointed Field Marshal
many
sions and other reserves for counter-
the Allies from gaining a beachhead.
derwent an impressive improvement.
for the fighting
follow. Far too
Germans stood
priority:
ground troops.
tactical preparation of
ed that an invasion buildup had not yet
reasonable assess-
at
point-blank range.
ment; intelligence from Britain indicat-
a
frontal
and Tiger tanks
of Panther
no
It
That
whose main
weapons could not pierce the
the battle. Without that capability, the
the West.
to crews
armor, which, as
it
... If
I
told
you what
I
had seen among those
divisions, you'd not believe
it.) It
was nothing
to leave the tanks to hold a position at night
MHQ
—
— and
retire the infantry
gerous? trate
—and
let
—
for a rest? too dan-
the [enemy] infantry
infil-
back and take the position.
tial
landing force would seize the lodg-
ment
that
would allow the
logistical
buildup to take place. Five attacking
The Canadians had most of the weak-
di-
code-named, from west to
east, Utah,
nesses of their British comrades. In
Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword
World War
A
—^would
avoid both the bad weather and
and
U.S. aircrews flew higher
flak,
faster
than
I,
they and the Australians
seize the bridgehead.
had held the
justifiable reputation of
troop drop by the U.S. 82nd and 101st
and 101st Airborne were blown
among Common-
airborne divisions west of Utah would
the Cotentin Peninsula and elsewhere in
being the
troops
elite
wealth forces. But extended exposure to the British
way
of
war seems
to have
worn away the
qualities of initiative
flexibility that
had characterized their
operations in the previous war.
went ashore
and
And
ex-
who
cept for the Dieppe disaster, those
Normandy had been
at
de-
nied the leavening experience of combat.
The Americans, coming last,
into the
war
had their own problems. The Ger-
mans had had
six years,
from 1933
to
1939, to prepare and then five years of terrible at the
combat
to
hone
their skills.
But
outbreak of war in 1939, the U.S.
prevent
German
massive para-
counterattacks on that
beach and take German defenses in the
on the eastern
rear. Similarly,
Normandy, the vision
would
side of
British 6th Airborne Di-
seize the bridges over the
Orne River and the Caen Canal, blocking any counterattack from that direction.
The airborne
divisions
would play
the crucial role of protecting the inva-
enemy
sion beaches from
interference
Montgomery, once he had aimed
to fight a
sizable
mobile
open country east of Caen
battle in the
The presence
vaders:
of
American para-
the picture for the
first
German commanders
The launching of the invasion during a period of
tributed to
German
bad weather actually con-
its
success. As usual,
something big was
service added to the illusion of
birthday; meanwhile, the
greenness and lack of tactical prepara-
Sicily,
which resulted
large
numbers
of
ground
forces,
deaths of
in the
young men. Moreover, air, naval,
economy
mobilization of the American
and the huge
and
combined with the rapid
logistical infrastructure re-
—one —placed severe
quired to fight two separate wars in
Europe, one in Asia
pressures on the able to U.S.
manpower
ground
pool avail-
forces. After other
and the army's administration
services
had grabbed their portion of infantry often got
what was
recruits, the
capacity to adapt to
combat than
British counterparts.
From
the Americans steadily improved.
improvement owed much lessness that
their
contact,
Such
to the ruth-
American senior command-
ers displayed in sacking officers
not measure up.
went mobile
When
at the
who
did
the battle finally
end of July, the
a subordi-
British general, as arrogant as he
was
unimaginative, would not get to fight his battle; perhaps that
was lucky, be-
cause his British troops were hardly
Throughout May,
in glorious weather,
Allied forces concentrated in southern
no
British
army
possessed, with the
possible exception of General William Slim's in
Burma.
Allied conceptions for the
campaign
were clear and straightforward. The
ini-
jour-
on her
commander
of
the Seventh Army, charged with defending Normandy, ordered his corps and division
commanders
to participate in a
war game
at his
The
was that there was
result
headquarters in Rennes.
tion or coherence to the
throughout June
direc-
little
German moves
6.
began to come
Rundstedt gave two
in,
reserve panzer divisions near Paris
England. The target date for Overlord
Panzer Lehr and the 12th SS Panzer Di-
was June
vision, Hitler
5,
but conditions failed to co-
operate: Atrocious weather arrived with
the
new month
of June.
on the
late
fifth,
It
appeared that
would
might be tolerable on the
hower took the
risk
vasion. This break
finally
sixth. Eisen-
and ordered the
June when the low
full
that the
tides
window around
order to
move
Jugend
— the preparatory
to Caen,
two hours before
the seaborne landings began. But neither division could begin until Hitler
actual
its
movement
confirmed the order. Colonel
General Alfred Jodl, the
OKW chief of op-
erations, informed a disgruntled
stedt that the fiihrer
would make the decision morning when the
Rund-
was sleeping and later in the
situation
was
clearer.
Thus, the
German defenders
impact of the beach obstacles
mandy had
to fight the battle of the first
Germans had implanted.
day with whatever troops they had in the
dawn would allow the the
in-
was crucial because
there was only a relatively small in early
occur
so that conditions
attackers to escape
Americans displayed a capacity to exploit that
Rommel
to visit his wife
As reports of major paratroop landings
trained to fight in mobile conditions.
a break in the storms
left.
But the Americans displayed a greater
first
Montgomery assigned
nate role to the Americans. But the
calm by
reporting that conditions would not be
the logistical base by seizing Cherbourg
tion,
in
German weather
the offing, while the
neyed home
in
most of
intelligence missed the indica-
suitable for an invasion.
As he had done
in
hours of D-Day.
Meanwhile, the Americans would secure
Brest.
over
troops everywhere completely muddied
with the bulk of his British armor.
and eventually
all
Normandy. Fortunately, this worked somewhat to the advantage of the in-
tors that suggested
in the first hours.
forces ashore,
normal, so that paratroops of the 82nd
Army had ranked seventeenth in size among the armies of the world. Not surprisingly, many of the units that fought in Normandy displayed a depressing
the sudden expansion of
10
the Americans were less successful in
achieving a tight concentration. To
own beachhead
visions, each with its
British paratroops in the east landed
within their drop zones. But to the west,
immediate As dusk settled over the English
air-
area,
and that proved
in
Nor-
insuffi-
cient to counter the invasion.
paratroops from three
For the most part, the British and
airborne divisions clambered aboard
Canadians overcame the opposition on
fields
on June
The
pathfinders were
their beaches with relative ease. British
before midnight. Most of the
paratroops formed a successful blocking
their aircraft.
down
5,
first
—
Omaha was
the toughest beach, the only one of the five invasion beaches at which success
craft, infantry (LCI),
force over the
surrounded by defensive obstacles and falling
Orne River and the Caen
Canal, and after several hours they were reinforced by infantry.
The
largest prob-
lem that Commonwealth troops found
moving south out not
German
of the beachhead
palled officer
under
itself.
One
if
men
lay to the north.
looking directly
also
down
artillery-
had the protection of a platoon fifty
paratroopers; but
gap remaining between Sword and Juno.
Winters and his
men
took out the ar-
Running Sherman
guns of the
tillerymen, the paratroopers, and the
—which under-
guns. Such intervention by the Ameri-
ap-
march up the road
it is
105mm guns
onto Utah beach. The German
was
in
unlikely the British
and Canadians could have captured
into the heavy Firefly tanks
line that the
tank the
there had been less confusion
on the beaches,
That night the 12th SS Panzer Di-
vision arrived in the city, while the 21st
tide.
of approximately
peacetime formation.
Even
in doubt. Here, a landing
Late in the day, the 21st attacked the
watched a Scots battalion
artillery fire
was ever
stranded by the outgoing
in
opposition but the confu-
sion of the beachhead
tion.
shells, lies
if
Sherman was not
a
bad
equipped with a decent weapon
Germans immediately
lost thirteen
can paratroops in innumerable other cations
smoothed the going
But American
lo-
at Utah.
difficulties at
Omaha
tanks. In the end, the 21st failed to
imperiled the success of the entire inva-
achieve anything and lost 70 tanks of the
sion.
124 they had begun with that day.
most exposed
Of
all
the beaches, to
Omaha was
the
Channel weather, and
Montgomery
At Utah, the beach farthest west, the
had hoped, because the 21st Panzer Di-
Americans achieved an easy landing.
thirty-two amphibious tanks that were
supposed to swim ashore to support the
around Caen. The lead battalion of the
The paratroop drops undoubtedly helped the tactical situation. Numerous
Canadian 3rd Infantry Division did have
small actions by paratroops disturbed,
the rest foundered, and most of their
a clear road into Caen, but
brigade
confused, and at times crushed
German
crews drowned. The story was equally de-
remain
resistance. In one case. Lieutenant
pressing for the artillery; virtually no
move was
Richard Winters of the 101st and twelve
howitzers in the
not in the plans. Whether the Canadians
paratroopers, later reinforced by a few
through the roiling
could have held Caen
soldiers, took out a battery of four
had
Caen on the vision had
much
commander where
it
first day. as
of
its
forces deployed
twice ordered
it
was, since any such
is
its
to
another ques-
the Americans paid a heavy price. Out of
infantry, only five reached the beaches;
to fight their
first
wave made
surf.
it
The infantry
way ashore
in the face
MHQ 11
A group of universal carriers,
the ubiquitous
little
known as Bren carriers, travels cross-country had to move at whatever hour possible.
British tracked transports
the dark. There were so few roads behind the invasion front that units
whole 352nd
of heavy resistance by the
Infantry Division, instead of a
ed.
Not surprisingly, the
6,
Americans
way
fortifications overlooking
But
German
the
first
hours,
officer
looked as
it
if
He
huddled on the shoreline, that many
vehicles were burning and
was
inflicting
Reports to American dicated
much
the
German
ar-
of
June
fought their reinforce-
into the beachhead.
had been a close-run thing.
What might have happened Americans had not succeeded
the
is
in
difficult
the
making
Allies
mel had wished, they might have ed the landing at
would
time linking up the
Omaha and
if
the
all
of
Rom-
defeat-
perhaps
bottled
up one
But
worth noting that even Rommel
felt if
a difficult question. Could
Germans have won? The
have had a
possible that
their reserves close to the coast as
enough inland that
a lodgment
is
stationed virtually
it is
the
of the British landings.
main landing would come
at Pas-
de-Calais, to the east; as a result, even he
would have pushed most additional
re-
serves to the Fifteenth Army. But this
was Germany
in 1944,
and Hitler was not
about to remove his influence from the
conduct of operations. Under such
American and
with two isolated positions, the Germans
cumstances, the Germans had no chance
might have launched a more successful
to keep the invasion
in-
situation; for a
Omar
Bradley considered putting subsequent
Omaha
into Utah.
British bridgeheads,
series of counterattacks.
On
reports from that sector,
German com-
6,
the Allies had
Europe. By the end of the day, they had
in the face of the
so favorable a circumstance
on
from succeeding.
As the sun set on June
man commanders slaught makes
toll
the other
cir-
gained a successful lodgment
But gradually the situation improved.
the 352nd; and after receiving optimistic
and
hand, the continuing confusion of Ger-
American infantry moved inland; heavy naval gunfire took an increasing
12
it
It
By the end
Omaha had
ments could flow
desperate.
Germans had
commanders
same
for
far
at
more
heavy casualties.
short period. Lieutenant General
waves scheduled
to
serious situation in
despite considerable confusion, the
landing
and the
the survivors
more
front of the British.
initial
reported, after noting that the Americans
tillery fire
deal with the
casualties,
the defenses had stopped the attack.
lay
manders channeled reinforcements
down on com-
Germans pinned
the beaches. To a
manding Omaha in
in-
had report-
fantry brigade as intelligence
waves suffered heavy
weak
in
mattered
it
doubtful whether even
in the end.
warned, once the
on-
Allies
As
would have
Rommel had
were ashore, the
Wehrmacht's position grew more and
gotten about 156,000 craft
and ship
men
—75,215
in
western
ashore by
air-
across the beach-
es in British sectors, 57,500 in the
Amer-
ican sectors, and 23,000 paratroopers
and gliderborne
infantry. In
all,
eight di-
—
Tanks,
made impotent by
the bocage,
had been confined to the narrow lanes or a
few crossing points. An American sergeant cured
Hedgerow Device
(inset)
this,
improvising the Cullin
from scrapped German beach obstacles. The prongs weld-
ed to the front could bite into the embankment, creating a gap at almost any point. visions were ashore. In the west, the
Americans had established a head
for the VII Corps, into
numbers plies
solid beach-
of
men and
a
which
mountain
vast
of sup-
had established a solid lodg-
followed over the next three days. But
Canadians came
their three beaches already
On
the other side, the
in general disarray,
most
of their high
vinced
—
as they
greater invasion
And
command
would remain
June and July
— that
a
German
for
squadrons
to
much
in Pas-de-
up a substan-
forces in France,
battered fighter
Ultra
week the Germans
but supported by naval gunfire and ar-
in-
intelligence
material derived from the decryption of
aircraft
complete
and the next week 232.
air superiority
France; by day nothing
Not
until
second best against
the well-trained, juvenile murderers;
ry claims; in the first
362
off
only swelled Allied victo-
Allied fighter aircraft continued to enjoy
France to attack the
Through
movement
con-
At this point the Luftwaffe executed its
the
lost
waiting for an invasion that never came.
plan to deploy
vasion, the Luftwaffe had
with
second and
would come
that belief tied
portion of
vaders.
bases. Within thirty-six hours of the in-
under the baleful Kurt Meyer piled into
Germans were
its
the locations of the forward operating
the Canadians. In ferocious fighting, the
linked together.
tial
Al-
moved over
ment with
Calais.
—the
200 fighters to France; an additional 100
and Canadians had not captured Caen,
of
traffic
plans and even
at
were pouring. Though the British
least they
German military radio lies knew the German
over northern
moved by
road.
midnight on June 6-7 did
tillery
already ashore, they held.
Several hundred Canadians surren-
dered to the SS, but
many
failed to
reach
one
testi-
prisoner-of-war cages. There
monial
in the
is
Canadian archives to an
arrive in Caen, focusing
in which the teenagers machine-gunned Canadian prisoners
the battle on that city for the next
and then drove their tanks over the bod-
the
first
Hitler
troopers from the
Jugend
month and
a half. Created
of the Hitler Youth,
it
SS
division
from the
elite
represented as
incident
ies.
There
is
extensive evidence that the
troops of Hitler Jugend followed a policy
ideologically fanatic a formation as the
of executing large
numbers
of prisoners.
Germans
About the best that can be
said for jus-
fielded in the war.
The next
day Hitler Jugend's panzer brigade
tice
is
that
most
of the perpetrators
were
MHQ 13
Omaha Beach: A Omaha
Scenario for Disaster but the chilling
the coast. His battle group
had
scenario that follows could
had been attacked several
fenders. The firing from
times from the air and
CoUeville meant the Ameri-
budge
beach was the hinge
upon which the
strategic de-
Normandy
sign of the
Hitler,
well have happened,
inva-
and
it
points up what a near thing
half-dozen vehicles. The at-
cans were attacking
Omaha
tacks had slowed Wiinsche
beach. The artillery com-
down. Each time the column
mander was now
an lodgment
book. Disaster at D-Day: The
had
re-
ing blindly at the beaches,
that of the Americans at
Germans Defeat
the AlHes,
assemble, but
arrived in-
Utah beach, a single lodg-
June 1944,
published
tact at its
hoping to hit something. He would gladly support Wiinsche's attack. The ar-
ment
that
by
would provide the
adapted Tsouras's new
was.
from Peter
to the east with
operational depth necessary
It is
G.
to be
Greenhill Press and
freedom of movement and continued buildup of forces. But when the infantry hit the beach at Omaha, they not only encountered un-
to scatter
ville
and CoUeville, the
vil-
lages just behind the beach-
Rommel's powers
of persua-
The sound of the guns
drew Wiinsche's attention
from
sion, at last, have pried
Hitler's grasp one
es.
more
commander had
expectedly strong resistance
made up
monished him
but had to overcome
cruits
with-
out most of their tanks and
of teenage
— the
time
movement
in transferring
just fir-
map
tilleryman laid out his for the
SS
officers. It
was
fa-
miliar to them; they had planned for an exercise with
352nd
the
on
in this area
this very day.
any
Wiinsche's orders quickly put his column on the road
most vulnerable
be
will
to
it
off the
beach as
to attack
off the
ad-
quickly as possible. "They
He wasted no
(Hitler Youth).
which had been
re-
Hitler Jugend
to
The
CoUeville, to the east.
corps
artillery,
it
assembly area by
panzer division, the 12th SS,
it
and then
noon, directly between Vier-
Stackpole.
for
to attack CoUeville.
German
them
that the
stragglers told
claimed by the rough seas in
Normandy, and two
of its
then," he had said. Wiinsche
Americans were swarming
the landing.
regiments arrived on June 5
assembled his commanders
the beaches and had taken
Had Field Marshal Erwin Rommel been able to prevail on Hitler to move just one
as the great
and he
CoUeville. Already small par-
more panzer
of the division
division
storm blew over
to issue his orders,
the Channel and drenched the
behind
Norman
coast.
The
By then
to arrive
mandy
the invasion had begun.
— and he wanted Omaha — the in-
it
rest
was scheduled
on June
the coastal defenses in Nor-
behind
6.
Within a few hours of the
repeated the warning. He
ties of
was joined by an artillery battalion commander of the
were being encountered.
352nd Infantry Division, whose guns were furiously
SS sped down the
on the beaches. The
firing
Omaha,
off
American infantrymen
They were swept away
as the
road, their
coming hidden by the hedgerows that lined the twisting roads. Wiinsche
vaders could have faced a
Allied landing at
determined counterattack
ObersturmbannfiJhrer Max
latest intelligence he had.
called in the fire support.
by German tanks, and the
Wiinsche's battle group of
town was suddenly wreathed
major was able
to
convey the
ripped loose. As we know,
had been ordered north to an
Most of the draws leading from the beaches onto the bluff overlooking them had
Rommel was
assembly three miles behind
fallen,
vital
hinge might have been
the 12th
not able to
killed or mutilated in the fighting that
followed.
On
the other side. Allied intel-
ligence officers in
wounded SS
troopers
some cases got who fell into their
did not they
to be immediately bro-
ken up and rushed to a number of
dif-
in the lead followed by
tion in the
West capable
SPWs
of handling
mobile divisions. Increasing French resistance and sab-
ferent sectors.
German
The SS burst
into CoUeville, Panther tanks
signal
breakdowns exacerbat-
otage added to
German
difficulties.
The
SS panzer
would receive transfusions
June 9 and 10 indicated the precise loca-
two weeks
tion of the headquarters of Panzer
Limoges, a journey that should have
Group West. Obligingly the Germans
taken only two days. Air attacks and am-
But the German
effort to batter the
and Canadians
Caen allowed the
at the gates of
Allies to consolidate
the beachheads. Hitler
still
hoped
for a
counterattack that would push the Allies
mandy, they had
he surmised, since he
in explosions.
ed the situation. Ultra intercepts on
if
of Jewish blood.
British
SS Panzer Division
The
they
hands to talk by threatening that
into the sea. But
Rommel found
himself desperately trying to plug holes in a bulging dike. As
German
ments flowed— or crept 14
contact with the de-
would swing. A secure beachhead at Omaha would unite the British and Canadi-
sion
MHQ
lost a
lost
reinforce-
— into
Nor-
placed their tents and supporting vehi-
an open
cles in
er
field,
where
bombers wrecked the
killed
staff.
entire site
and
Normandy from
bushes made the move
a
nightmare.
Along the way, members of the division instigated a
number
of atrocities that
confirm that Hitler Jugend 's behavior
This air attack effectively
was symptomatic of the criminal nature
officers,
removed Panzer Group West
as
an oper-
ating headquarters and robbed the Ger-
mans
to arrive in
including the
seventeen
chief of
Allied fight-
division Das Reich took nearly
of their only
command
organiza-
of the Waffen
SS
as a whole.
The worst
occurred at Oradour-sur-Glane, where
SS troopers murdered 600 French
civil-
—
(half-track
the
the battle group had coursed
up the draw toward Colle-
through the town. The sur-
ville.
ei-
enemy was fading
ther side of the town. The
viving
Americans had not had time
back toward the beach.
to organize a defense,
and
moving up from the
had
ville
Huebner had
them forward sible,
to get
as fast as pos-
but the draw and the
to the landing
voice of one of the observers
Bradley aboard the cruiser
and a few tanks and jeeps.
USS Augusta. An
draw. The battle group
path through
on the beach. Their
Colleville
and took the road
northwest that led
maining Sherman tanks that
Again a high-speed approach
had accompanied them
produced
to
began to sob as the voice de-
road. In a few minutes the
scribed the havoc ashore.
sleek lines of a tank with a
Rear Admiral Alan Kirk, com-
black cross careened
maximum shock
down
manding the
naval task force,
spoke
first: "I
of in-
Americans. The tank's ma-
them
off the
They had been surprised
fantry that they literally ran
chine guns sprayed the area
off the
by the artillery, which
columns
the
over coming north out of
crowded with
down many of them as they moved through the town. Those who reemerged from cover were cut down by the tanks and by machine
the draw.
ner was getting an anti-
guns on the speeding SPWs.
at the
Every time the Americans
set
formed
it
first
struck
point-blank until
mans
One"
fire into it
was
— the "Big
— had
moved
mouth
into a
"Danger Forward,"
over now."
It's
And
it
men were
swarmed down onto the
More Panthers came
beach.
A
made
few
their
out of the draw to clank up
east
commander, was
and down the beach, spray-
draw
ing machine-gun
units, but the bulk of the
when
the
all
to link
up with other two
crowds of fleeing men and
infantry regiments and
a radio in
shooting directly into land-
the attached units had been
over the town!"
then silence. The antitank
problems. Their shells sliced
guns of the 18th Infantry,
right through the thin hulls
which had landed
and turrets of the Shermans.
ond wave, were
men in women and
the
A
the town screamed, "Tanks, tanks,
fire at
way
and west away from the
General Clarence Huebner,
bounce
and burned the
was. Everywhere
all
side.
from
fields
any more of our boys.
almost
"Danger Forward." Major
frantic call
They machine-gunned the
"No," Bradley said, "don't kill
surrendering as the Germans
thers, only to see their shot
ians:
will lose a lot
our own guns."
killing
into Colleville.
open
hold
naval
of the division staff in-
SS attacked
armor.
we
most
tried to block the Pan-
off the frontal
we
men from
down the draw. One of them fired directly into ing
draw and
of the
a sign that
standing outside
The German high-velocity 75mm guns had no such
slither-
if
enemy with
gunfire, but of
can get some of
beach
proclaimed
up
the division
si-
The handful of Sher-
when two
more monsters came
Red
Hueb-
targets.
tank gun in place
American
staff of the
burned-out German bunker
a nest of resistance,
the Panthers would
lenced.
The
1st Division
officer
broke loose up the
All hell
it.
to General
the draw, scattering the
among
Omar
packed tight with infantry
its
the beach.
as
they exploded. The sickened
Colle-
reversed
off
them
craft only to die in
was relayed
only hope was the few re-
it
and down the beach. Men were fleeing
hedgerow-bound road were
all
fight tanks; those
that
to be
The enemy appeared
in
any case did not have the heavy infantry weapons to lost
was moving
In less than fifteen minutes,
and spread out
through the orchards on
been
column
armored person-
nel carriers),
at the
lost.
division in the U.S.
hundred yards.
been destroyed.
From
the
command
had been the basic principle of
sitions
German
defensive doctrine since 1917.
It
Army had
was almost
ships
4:00 P.M. Not even ten hours
saw the
had passed since the Big Red
gray-painted tanks fan out up
end of
The proudest infantry
ing craft approaching the
beach at a range of only a few
offshore, observers
in the sec-
all
One had
landed.
Bocage without hindrance. But the British advanced as
if
on
a
peacetime
battles,
The British were often their own worst enemy. On June 12, their com-
outnumbered and outgunned German
manders recognized that the German
infantry held out against their superior
positions west of Caen, between Villers-
however, happened to be Captain
Bocage and Caumont, were up
Michael Wittman, a great tank ace of the
children to death in the village church.
Throughout the Normandy
opponents. But they were being gradually
worn down
lessness
in spite of the tactical care-
and lack of
British troops.
they found
it
The
initiative of U.S.
and
British reported that
disconcerting to
come over
air;
in the
they thereupon switched the axis of
the 7th
Armored
Division's advance to
thing that
we had never
one lieutenant put
it
envisaged," as
—an extraordinary
admission, because the reverse-slope po-
Germans
Eastern Front, with
Wittman and
five
in the area,
Tiger tanks.
his tank crews blasted the
head of the column and then rolled up
right; the
little in
"some-
of the few
the British formation. By the time the
They were
around Caen was soaking up most of
slope,
One
Germans had
tion.
mans dug
on the reverse
sance units in front or on the flanks.
the west to take advantage of the situa-
the tops of ridges to discover the Gerin
maneuver: There were no reconnais-
the area, because the fighting
fighting in Villers-Bocage
was
over, the
British had lost twenty-five tanks
and
lead brigade of the
twenty-eight other armored vehicles.
7th Armored Division was soon through
Wittman's action plugged the dike long
their strength.
the
German
The
lines
and reached
Villers-
enough
for the
2nd SS Panzer Division
MHQ 15
—
Canadian troops charge through the surrealistically distorted ruins of a hangar at Carpiquet
The restricted frontage of the invasion beachhead forced the Allies
to arrive
and reinforce him. In
effect,
this action prevented the British
rolling
from
up the German position west
Caen. For over a
month Montgomery
tacked, but British field skills
and Canadian
of at-
battle-
were not up to the task of
creating a breakthrough.
until July 13.
must
and
operational weaknesses, they fought the best formations in the
German army
in
the West to exhaustion. The fighting
frontline units.
Any breakthrough
June or July would have resulted mobile battle
France
in central
in
in a
—one
in
forces for a powerful counterthrust.
back on their supply dumps, extracted
Again and again Rundstedt and
Rommel
and prevent-
their best units. Ironically, the very failure to achieve
failed to
give the British
4.
which the Germans would have
the price they paid was an attrition of
their due; whatever their tactical
16
pre-
ed breakthroughs toward the east. But
end British infantry and tanks
MHQ
Normandy and
secure
finally
west of Caen, on July
vented them from concentrating their
The Germans were
well prepared, and from beginning to
cooperate. But one
It
pinned the German armor on the eastern battlefield in
airfield,
wear down the Germans with repeated frontal attacks.
around Caen served a larger purpose:
stabilized a collapsing line
The Canadians did not
Caen
to
a
breakthrough to more open ground
east of
Caen worked
to the Allied advan-
tage. Battles of attrition played to Allied
strengths
—firepower and manpower
and wore away outnumbered German
their forces
from western France
damaged
fashion,
casualties
on
The area
and
fallen
in less
inflicted heavier
Allied forces.
into
which the
Allied forces
moved in early June was less open German reinforcement and supply; least for the short
run
it
was
to at
also of less
significance, because advances in the
bocage country tall,
led only to
more
of the
thick hedgerows around each patch
of field.
The Germans could form one
AARON BOHROD U S ARMY CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY. WASHINGTON, D C /
American soldiers
tight their
way
into Coutances
on July 28. After the breakthrough at St.-Lo on July 18, German troops
fought fierce rearguard actions against a relentless American advance, but they
defensive line after another,
bocage
making the
ideal defensive terrain.
Not sur-
commanders had concentrat-
prisingly,
had no
port fully until September; by then the battlefield
had moved
far
from Nor-
mandy. In retrospect, however, the
clear-
reserves to restore their lines.
—though that changed
difference
little
once the breakout occurred. But, as
Rommel
noted, the Americans generally
ing of the Cotentin Peninsula proved a
learned from experience, while
a success than on thinking through the
wise decision, because
often the British did not.
implications of the terrain beyond
American flank firmly on the Atlantic
which they would have
and meant operational freedom.
ed more on making the
initial
landings
to fight after the
Worrisome
invasion occurred.
By June
18, the
Americans had cut the
for the
it
placed the
On
American comof
3,
the VII Corps launched a
would carry Such
all
a success
the
way
to Avranches.
would end the stalemate
base of the Cotentin Peninsula by reach-
many
ing the Atlantic Ocean at Barneville.
Bradley to keep the airborne divisions in
among commanders and
Lawton ("Lightning
the front lines longer than planned and
alike.
Major General
J.
Joe") Collins, the VII Corps
who had now
commander,
led a division at Guadalcanal,
drove north toward Cherbourg. The
Americans fought their way into the
city
against third-rate troops; by June 27,
enemy
resistance had ended
Germans had wrecked
—but the
the port
facilities.
Despite massive efforts to repair the
damage, the Americans
failed to
open the
to rely
units. That
weakness forced
on a small group of better-trained
infantry divisions, such as the 1st and 9th.
But Eisenhower and Bradley em-
that
ter
too
on Saint-L6 that Bradley hoped
drive
manders was the weak performance
July
all
was rapidly increasing frustration politicians
The American advance did no
bet-
than British attacks, and in this case
against weaker forces. Nevertheless,
though suffering heavy
casualties, the
barked on a ruthless program to weed
Americans slowly pushed the Germans
The Amer-
back to Saint-L6, a wearing-down process that would eventually crack
out incompetents at
all levels.
icans were also paying a price in the
bocage country
for their
emphasis on
German
defenses.
mobility over weight of weaponry. In the
Meanwhile, by the end of the month,
made
the Americans had solved the hedgerow
conditions of Normandy, mobility
MHQ 17
in the Soviet
through which they could press
tank to cut through the roots. Code-
Union was one of the most
active centers
ward. For the Germans, the fighting
named Rhino,
of resistance
ly.
What made
noteworthy fact that
veloped
it
allowed American
the device particularly
— and American —was the
— he was now desperately
looking over his shoulder as the plot un-
problems were an
raveled. His political
important influence on the decisions he
many Lehr,
officers de-
took as the front collapsed, and he would
Fritz Bayerlein replied:
steel obsta-
soon commit suicide.
everyone
beaches of Normandy.
It is
NCOs
conceivable that
grenadiers and
scattered on the
almost
army would have invented such a vice, and even more doubtful that
At the end of July, Bradley unleashed
in-
in the British
dese-
the decisive offensive of the battle.
Normandy
Operation Cobra broke the dead-
lock. Crucial to
American success was
nior officers would have embraced
the contribution of British and Canadi-
something invented by "other ranks."
an attacks
The hundreds
divisions, including six of the
of tanks equipped with
in the east:
Fourteen German
Wehr-
tank crews
"Out
my
engineers, and
—they're
They are lying
holes for they are dead."
The Americans
failed to achieve a
They
clear breakthrough.
eventually lever
German
macht's best panzer divisions, faced the
from the coast. Mobile
Commonwealth
forced the
remained road-bound.
visions confronted
By
the
late July,
Germans confronted
a rapidly deteriorating situation. Their
the west
di-
American attacks
in
— two of them
panzers, and
both in dreadful shape. Instead of
at-
logistical position, particularly
on the
tacking across a broad front, the VII
western side of the
was
Corps launched
battlefield,
in
its
on just
offensive
7,000-yard front. To prepare the way,
out of reinforcements to rebuild the col-
Bradley asked for a carpet
lapsing line, and Allied strength in Nor-
by strategic bombers. However,
mandy had now reached over a million men. To add to German woes, their high
bombers make runs
command collapsed in July. Rundstedt, who had snapped that Field Marshal Wil-
ular to U.S. lines; they believed that
helm
there was
Keitel should
"make peace," was
replaced by Field Marshal
von Kluge, a general his malleability.
officer notable for
army. Like most
skills of
who had
the Ger-
served in
the East, he underestimated Allied air
power. Kluge's
first
comment
mel was that he had better
start
orders; but before relations
two
field
manders refused requests that Instead, the
back"
to
Rom-
obeying
between the
marshals reached an explosive
airmen came
little
— friendly
as
it
—
after
in
bombers took
off
bombed anyway, and
the next day.
With activation of the Third Army arrival of
General George
S. Pat-
the Americans rolled into high
Jr.,
But the Third Army's actions
dis-
played the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the U.S. Army. The
first
move through Avranches head-
units to
ed west and not east, where the greatest
opportunity for exploitation
Patton's
lay.
were to move rapidly forward,
but since the plans called for him to go
west into Brittany toward Brest, he
number
of
the Ameri-
can infantry suffered casualties, twentyfive killed
Avranches
On
start.
England, but by the time they
again unsuitable. However, a
it
to
from bases
reached the target the weather was
aircraft
place.
instincts
Bad weather delayed the July 24, the
30, liberating
and the
gear.
a "creep
were
and the
in the air,
At this point, exploitation could take
their
in perpendic-
chance of
fire,
on July
ton,
parallel to the front.
was soon up
them
The German
Americans pushed through
com-
bombing began.
Kluge arrived sure of
himself and the tactical
man
Hans Giinther
bombardment air
flank
at last, they
back, pushing
east rather than south.
a
shambles. Moreover, they were running
Germans
however,
did,
defenders away
Rhino gave the Americans cross-
Only eleven
leaving his
is
silently in their fox-
country mobility, while German tanks
soldiers.
My my
holding their
all
ground. Not a single one post.
in front
holding out. Everyone.
is
of
to the last. General
mostly using the
Germans had
left
Panzer
his division, the
must hold
for-
an order
units. After receiving
from Kluge that
holes
what was
that followed destroyed
noncommissioned
it,
cles the
and 131 wounded. The
results
obeyed his orders. Only
high
made
command
when
the Allied
recognized that
had
it
a mistake did Patton turn the re-
mainder of the Third Army to the
What makes was the
move
the
fact that
east.
so inexplicable
whatever the
logistical
level. Allied fighter
bombers caught
the next day were even worse for U.S.
needs for more port capacity, the Ger-
Rommel's
the open on July
troops in the area.
No fewer than 1,800 bombers from the Eighth Air Force struck the German positions, but even
mans had indicated by the destruction of Cherbourg that the Breton ports would not be
though the weather was nearly
perfect,
out until mid-September. Nevertheless,
bomber waves dumped a subnumber of bombs on U.S. posi-
the protests of one of the better Ameri-
staff car in
17, severely
wounding the Desert Fox.
Kluge refused to appoint a replace-
ment
for
Rommel, but
command the overall
instead
assumed
Army Group B along with command of the West. By the
of
the last stantial
end of the month, he had recognized
tions. This
how
killed 111
desperate the situation had become.
The explosion
bomb
time the Eighth Air Force
American
soldiers, including
a help. Brest
would hold
in slavish devotion to the plans
and over
can division commanders. Major General
John Wood, the
wrong
initial
move went
en-
in the fiihrer's
Lieutenant General Lesley McNair, and
tirely in the
headquarters, on July 20, only added to
wounded 490 others. The air attack did not completely
serious situation desperate. Instead of
of a
the burdens besetting the
German high
command. Since Kluge had
extensive
connections with those who had
18
enemy defenses now contained
launched the assassination plot
own former headquarters
tanks to support infantry attacks direct-
MHQ
— his
problem: They designed a device with steel teeth attached to the front of a
break German resistance, but shaken American attackers discovered that
direction.
Luckily for the Allies, Hitler
made
a
authorizing a withdrawal to save as
much
of his
manpower and equipment
The final products of war:
Modem weapons meant that combat soldiers—infantry and tankers—were more likely
than ever before, although these had become a minor fraction of the armies, especially those of the Western Kluge to
as possible, the fiihrer ordered
they would confront a battle even costlier to
Avranches, and cut off Patton's rampag-
stand
both sides. Nor did they under-
concentrate his armor, recapture
how
an action could
crucial such
commander makes
— the
clear that
to be killed
Allies.
historical evidence
Montgomery aimed
to
achieve a breakout from Caen in which
Commonwealth
troops would fight a
German
prove to achieving victory in 1944. With-
his
forces deeper into the sack. Ultra alerted
out an American focus on Falaise, Brit-
mobile battle to destroy the Germans,
Bradley, and with the Americans ready
ish
and waiting, the German counterattack,
faced a tough road. Unfortunately, the
ing forces. As a result, he stuck
at Mortain,
had no chance. At
this point
and Canadian
efforts
from the north
from the north were
efforts
The resulting
Patton's forces began their drive into
fective.
central France, and a gigantic encir-
can, British,
clement formed around German forces
substantial
less
failure of
Ironically, the opposite took place: It
was the Americans who fought the mo-
and Canadian forces allowed
from the German
collapse.
Reich, they found sufficient weapons and
Patton's encircling spearheads stopped
equipment from Albert Speer's econom-
full
at
benefit
Argentan to wait
ish
for the slower Brit-
ic efforts
to prolong the
war
into 1945.
and Canadian forces moving south-
ward. Patton jokingly suggested to
Army
Bradley that the Third
could con-
In the largest sense, the its
goals.
up. In the end, the battle that took place
emphasized the strengths and superiority of the Allies. It is
tragic that the Allies
was
Normandy
nesses in
mand
Germany
in 1944.
Their
partially the result of
weak-
defeat of Nazi
command. And
failure
was
made
yet that
inevitable.
of the
ocean for a second Dunkirk. But one
European continent. In an enormous
hower
senses that neither Bradley nor Patton
battle of attrition, they fought the Ger-
tion of raging egos into the
mans
to exhaustion
made
lapse.
The
close the Falaise gap:
much
desire to
They knew that
if
they actually encircled the Germans,
and inevitable
col-
Allied armies did not fight the
battle according to the
wishes of their
qualities that
to persuade
it
com-
The very
possible for Eisen-
tinue north and push the British into the
nor their troops had
were not
able to translate their success into the
The armies
Western powers returned to the
and the British who mopped
bile battle
failure
campaign achieved
rear
ef-
Nevertheless, the Allies failed to reap
Normandy.
mopped up
areas and provided logistical support.
Ameri-
than
numbers of the toughest German troops to make their escape from Falaise. Upon their return to the
in
while the Americans
and cajole a
collec-
team that
the invasion possible could not
provide the driving, ruthless push that
might have tumbled Germany
in
August
MHQ 19
OPERATION OVERLORD JUNE 6, 1944 (D-Day) Planned Airborne Dropping and Landing Zones
UTAH
CT)
Assault Beaches
^^^4
First Allied Assault
Q3 ^ ^—
Allied-Held Areas
German Concentrations near Allies at 2400 Hrs. on D-Day
Littry-la-Mine
^^
German Front
Lines near Allied Troops
4
Major German
Gun
Waves
at
2400 Hrs. on D-Day
Batteries
(III) Allied Objectives at
2400 Hrs. on D-Day Flooded Areas
RCT
Regimental
Combat Team Miles
The most famous invasion day in history began quietly, as a
coast to link up with airborne forces. In contrast, the other
small advance force of Allied path finders parachuted to both
American beach, Omaha, saw
ends of the
five
targeted Normandy beaches to try to
mark
in-
—despite being —one British and two American
land airdrop and glider-landing zones. Then scattered by high winds
air-
— —including a daring climb to the
much
towns. Several miles offshore, the mightiest armada ever as-
top of the cliff at Pointe du Hoc, to the west, by Rangers
—dozens of convoys comprising thousands of ships,
preceded by all-important minesweepers smaller landing
craft.
—began to drop off
Behind crucial teams of demolition
perts, the first regiments of tense, seasick soldiers
20
by the tough
borne divisions landed and seized key bridges, roads, and
sembled
MHQ
fierce resistance
German 352nd Division; despite continuous Allied naval bombardment and air attacks, they pinned down the first four waves of the U.S. 1st Division the "Big Red One." With
ex-
headed
individual heroism
under heavy
fire
—the Americans slowly gained a mile of to the east—
beachhead by day's end. At the three beaches Gold, Juno,
and Sword—British and Canadian
easier time; however, the first waves sustained ties,
beaches. At the westernmost one, Utah, the U.S. 4th Division
into part of the 352nd, at
made a relatively easy landing, though currents carried the men south of their targets. Facing little resistance in an area the Germans had deliberately Hooded, the Americans headed both inland, on five causeways, and northwest along the
defended, poorly, by coerced Russians
German
had an
many
casual-
and British troops on Gold also ran
through heavily mined waters for the obstacle-riddled assault
especially on Juno,
forces
Le Hamel. (The other beaches were
and Poles.) The only
counterattack, by tanks of the 21st Panzer Division,
failed quickly.
As D-Day ended, the British moved inland
with unfulfilled hope
—toward the key city of Caen.
—
21st
ARMY C3HUUK
AHMY
BRITISH SECOND (Dempsey)
(Montgomery)
BRITISH XXX CORPS'
BRITISH
IBrit. iBrit.
50th
I
CORPS
(Crocker)
(Bucknall)
"^
r
In f. Div.|
8th Armd. Bde.'
Can. 3rd
Inf.
Div iv]
Brit.
Can. 2nd Armd. Bde, dej
Brit.
3rd
Inf.
27th Armd.
Div,
Bde
SAY OF SEINE A.
^
|56thBde.|
_>\^
|151stBde.|
^
/
and September. Moreover, one can
Normandy was one
doubt whether any such commanding
ments. Bradley also showed the
personaUty could have made the
steady performance that
work
parate coalition
dis-
in harness in the
fashion that Eisenhower's combination of personal tact
and toughness
supreme
commander with
Allied
did.
A
the
soldier's soldier.
passed
For those
who walk
pecially
in
did
mark many
of the
commanders who
in the silent
cemeteries of Normandy, the cost of
Brooke could well have fractured the on which victory
made him a The first team had
seem
excessive.
the ages of those
who
at
died and considers
democracies on the
field of battle.
was paid
price of prewar neglect
the blood of youth and
campaign,
long, silent rows of crosses
Montgomery's strengths;
es-
the deficiencies of the armies of the
Tedder look particularly good. And the
did play to
That
seems true when one looks
directed the Allied side. Eisenhower and
at least until the breakout,
Anglo-Americans confronted enormous problems
in dealing
with the pernicious
tyrannies that had arisen in the world
during the 1930s. In the end they won,
and they created the basis
that victory can
coalition structure
mo-
stolid,
its test.
personality of a King, a MacArthur, or a
war and peace depended. The campaign
of his finer
David. Yet one
lies in
and
must remember
The
for a stable
peace that led to the re-creation of Europe.
the
The Normandy campaign brought
armed power and
political ideals of
the democracies back onto the Continent. That was a triumph of political significance.
but
it
It
enormous
was not
pretty,
served the purpose.
for in
those
stars of
that the
Williamson Murray
is
an MHQ contribut-
ing editor and a professor of European military history at
Ohio State University.
MHQ 21
The airborne's
watery triumph Small actions can have big results , as James Gavin and the the confused series of actions that centered on the fight for the bridge at La Fiere.
82nd Airborne proved in
by T.Micliael Booth and Duncan Spencer
Walton watched Brigadier James Maurice Gavin
Bill General
vasion of occupied France and the destruction of Germany's
machine, would begin
C-47 as
where Gavin stood.
it
flew low over Nor-
mandy, buffeting through the cold
air.
Behind Gavin, Walton stood
amidst a "stick" of eighteen paratroopers, straining
under the weight
weapons, hooked by a thin a
jump
static line to
who had
begged to get on the plane, cursed stupid idea.
of
For the hundredth time,
cable.
Walton, a civilian journalist,
Now
this
he could clearly see
door
to be close to Gavin.
Before taking off he had hoped for a big
Time magazine on the man becoming a legend, but the
story for
rapidly
hopes had dissolved and been replaced by
fear.
This was Walton's
first
vowed then and there never thing again
him
—
only
if
this time,
if
jump. He do such a
to
God would spare
only the parachute
Most of the
men
big, into history, like
Crecy or Waterloo
ward toward the wind-tortured door-
the seaborne invaders, not
frame of the rocking
outcome
la-
himself pushed for-
aircraft.
At
least,
he
would
or Cannae. But for days they
whelming. Numbed by the roar of
felt
82nd knew
of the
they were jumping into something very
worked! Walton
fight alone,
almost out of touch with
knowing the
of the invasion.
The Normandy drop was Gavin's door-
boring engines, air sucking and
thought, the Germans would not expect
screeching past the metal plane, Wal-
them. Then came the buffeting blows
way
ton kept his eyes on the figure in the
and the sound of metal spattering. Flak
tention of the entire world and
doorway and
pinged and pattered, random jagged
bits
him seem
kill.
heroes, Americans found
tried not to think.
Below, the land looked
board, but Walton
flat
as card-
knew there were
thousands of German soldiers down there, ready to
kill
him. There would be
of metal
meant
to cut, wreck,
and
and
There would be no surprise.
That night, troopers
over Normandy, para-
all
jumped
in a
broad band be-
to
fame
in battle.
It
larger than
his paratroopers.
captured the
life.
Looking
them
in
at-
made for
Gavin
The unforgettable
images of the Normandy beach by Life
magazine photographer Robert Capa
no support or protection. The clumsy
yond the beaches, bent on many
differ-
gave Americans the picture of their boys
transports had flown through the coast-
ent errands of war. By the end of the
storming ashore past wreckage, past
more than 1,000 men of the 82nd Airborne would be dead, wound-
even the corpses of their friends, but
line defenses, flak
rocking the planes.
Preflight briefings had
shown
the
tall
"Rommel's asparagus," that the Germans had set up to smash landing gliders. The beaches were bristling with guns and metal obstacles. But the poles,
planes droned on, dropping lower. The final stage of
22
Walton was glad
military
at the
own death in a dozen different versions. The noise was a drug, overhis
MHQ
waning
gripping the doorframe of the
the European war, the in-
next day,
ed, or missing.
marshes and
Many would
fall
sink, or hit trees,
into
where
they would dangle to be murdered later.
Some
disabled,
of the missing
many with broken
quickly taken prisoner.
would be bones, and
ir-
resistible. Gavin's black-faced troopers fulfilled
another fantasy: the
who fought who put their
warriors prise,
enemy
lines.
elite,
tough
by stealth and surlives at risk
Gavin was their beau
behind ideal.
Thirty-seven years of age on the night of the
Normandy
drop, Gavin
At 0100 hours on the morning of June
looked about ten years younger. Throughout a
jump
Suddenly the green
light
came
on,
6,
the first Allied invaders arrive in
g
from
the signal to jump, and Gavin, soon to
France: Over 13,000 paratroopers, car-
injury and, later, Parkinson's
be the youngest major general since
ried by
George Armstrong Custer,
leap
his
disease slowed
life,
and
until arthritis
finally
stopped him,
left
Walton
— the wind
850 C-47 transports, begin to into the night sky. Most of them
youth was his trademark. But not only
with a
youth, a particular brand of
Lean to
plastering dark cloth against the para-
an extreme, his strength was of the
trooper's wiry arms, his form outlined
tracers streaming across the ground,
sinew-and-muscle kind, the strength of
by the naked
and his
endurance. He lived a Spartan regimen,
on the
uninterrupted since early childhood, of
self
heavy manual work, long-distance
prop
marches, simplicity of
diet,
in the virtue of physical
it.
and a
belief
toughness.
At the height of his powers the night
he hurled himself out of the transport at the
German enemy, Gavin had been
preparing for this
moment
He had spent most moments thinking about
years.
ways to improve
it.
own
alloy doorway.
Like a suicidal caterpillar,
o "
orchard about two miles from where he
I
though he didn't
P
pushed forward, a sharp metallic sound
know
marking each man's
he had no idea exactly where he was.
Walton heard himself saying, quick."
Then
"I'll
go
he, too, reached the door
to be,
that until an
Checking that
all
hour
his parts
of his harness.
photo below. Twisted and tossed by the
branches hung low, and
work and
read almost
favorite
reference.
state-
Now
hoped-for opportunity had come.
the
turbulence of the prop
blast, his
mind
At
worked
light. Gavin's aide.
lurch
Olson, had landed nearby. The two
stopped. Silently, the can-
z
after
Hugo V. men
went numb, and then with a wonderful it all
first, §
About him the tree among the fallen blossoms cows grazed in the moon-
and jumped into the black-and-white
his
later.
his collision with the ground, he got out
twenty
He had
in
was supposed
"Don't push,"
|
an apple
Jim Gavin landed hard,
the rest of the stick, automatons now,
exit.
^
i
Gavin flung him-
forward and disappeared into the blast.
fear returned.
waking
and he had written out
for his
both hands tensed
2
°
z S
for
aphorisms from their recorded
ments
light,
will miss their planned landing zones.
of his
continuously about the great soldiers of history,
image
last flashing
g
Captain
moved out
opy blossomed above his head, and he
"rolled up" their stick, then
was swaying, masterfully, above the earth. The ground approached fast;
toward heavy
then Walton heard gunfire and saw
spring night that Gavin would always
It
was
firing in the distance.
a calm,
damp, mysterious
MHQ 23
The gliderbome reinforcements, two regiments plus all the divisions' antitank guns and vehicles, took off at dawn. Glider operations were too dangerous to execute in the dark, even under the urgent D-Day conditions.
remember. The Cotentin Peninsula
Normandy about
difficult
is
enough
at best; at night
danger of ambush,
The land
lay in a
cestral fields
it
to
and with the
was treacherous.
checkerboard of an-
surrounded by steep some overgrown,
fences and walls,
some neglected
— the
orchard was a small,
tle
lit-
group walked along both sides of
moving
in
it,
crouched position with M-ls
at the ready.
Then, about 400 yards
down, they encountered marsh where they could
see
a
watery
equipment
bazookas, and radios. While
in stout
to twenty feet high,
and
men went
after
— machine some
rifle
and
them, a red light began
and Gavin had found scattered about the
The red was an assembly marker
for the
507th Regiment, the blue
for
the 508th. Gavin sent Olson out to contact those groups.
Meanwhile, more
edge of the orchard. He knew that ner-
paratroopers joined their party,
vous German troops, alerted by anti-
to about ninety
now up
side
Olson soon returned with news. He
were a hazard. Lost
had found a railroad embankment on
cess retrieving the
every minute, but most of
were of the 507th and green
NCOs
and
suc-
to
more them
combat.
Furthermore, their commanders had
see they had overflown their zone
were just west of the Merderet River,
little
equipment bundles.
too heavy. They were collecting
so no one
to
of.
The water was too deep and the bundles
they were. Checking his map, he could
He needed
knew
Gavin's paratroopers had
the far side, which told Gavin
it.
in the
Those on the other
nearest objective they
derbrush invited vicious close contact,
where
lake.
had told Olson that they were to La Fiere. It was the
paratroopers crackling through the un-
508th Regiment.
of the 508th
moving out
men
men.
and the racket of the low-
find the rest of the
men
middle of the
one.
hedgerows with
but Gavin had to risk
What should have
as solid ground.
of the
growth. The Germans had already for-
flying transports,
it
had landed on both sides and
flashing across the marsh, then a blue
aircraft fire
sance because the high grass disguised
guns,
covered with trees and tangled under-
unmanned,
been hidden from aerial reconnais-
yard-wide lake. The
and brush, often heaped
several,
marsh, which had
deret, creating the
been a small river was now a thousand-
tained critical gear
pits,
bridge, one of the 82nd's objectives.
The Germans had flooded the Mer-
bundles floating. Gavin wanted the bundles retrieved because they con-
machine-gun
about two miles north of La Fiere
characteristic
hedgerows of rural Normandy. These
tified the
24
off the
worn, treelined road. Gavin and his
walls were fortresses: piled with dirt
mounds up
MHQ
Right
in
move
told
them
to black out all
knew who
were. The
rank insignia,
the officers and
men were
unsure of themselves, and
confused,
—exhausted
by the shock of the falling asleep. As
jump
—some were
German
fire built,
Matthew Ridgway, the division com-
that could
mander, fared
defense
mission was
best. Their
they took cover in the hedgerows,
to drop
where
Sainte-Mere-Eglise to secure that town
was almost impossible
it
to orga-
between the Merderet River and
it
make
a formidable
German
Gavin wanted to make sure
line.
was taken. There were other possible
objectives as well, including another
hamlets of La
bridge near Chef-du-Pont, which was
had no idea
Fiere and Chef-du-Pont, while forming
also critical. Squatting in the hedge-
what had happened to the rest of his command, and he had accomplished
blocking forces near the towns of
rows, Gavin
Neuville-au-Plain and Beuzeville-au-
move
nize them. Gavin was frustrated. With
dawn approaching, he
virtually nothing.
ented
still
He roused
men and moved
marsh and then south
his disori-
out across the
and the bridges
Plain.
They were ordered
forces of the 101st,
Gavin could not see
as well
the whole picture of the early hours of invasion.
to link
up with
which should have
been between Sainte-Mere-Eglise and
to La Fiere.
Utah beach
was
It
at the
The drop had been part suc-
fore
Like
itself.
the planes be-
all
them, the 505th transports ran into
side of the river, he could help the im-
minent bridge action
La Fiere and
at
also attack the Chef-du-Pont bridge.
he dispatched Lieutenant
First,
Colonel Arthur Maloney to see
way could be found
if
a bet-
flooded river. Then, because Chef-du-
blindly. Like the others,
About
half of the
men
landed within one
Pont was not
mile of their drop zones. Another 350
there were no
landed within two miles of their zones,
his
small groups wandered isolated, or
and the
them, around 600,
much
than two miles,
far, less
right, but they
rest of the
to cross the
and a Frenchman had told Gavin that
were widely dispersed. Individuals and fell
he could
way through
82nd and 101st airborne divisions had all
If
ter
they were dispersed, but not so badly.
landed in
his plan:
the clouds and bucked and twisted their
cess, part disaster. Paratroopers of the
Normandy
made
motley force to the opposite
his
Germans
there, he took
remaining men, commanded by
Lieutenant Colonel Edwin
J.
Ostberg of
into skirmishes with the
came
those early hours; for
fourteen miles from their targets.
moved south to Chefdu-Pont. Perhaps from there they
The 508th, with commander Gavin's
assistant division
could double back to La Fiere. Mean-
plane, followed the
while, Maloney's patrols succeeded
days, few
met
Germans in two or three
their objectives as stan-
dard military units.
A job
small force of pathfinders, whose it
was
to help guide the
mass
of
to earth scattered as
was supposed
to secure the
only in exhausting themselves, finding
no boats and no path. The Germans
505th.
It
505th; however,
had taken
even worse.
P.M.
from England
on the night
of
June
cially trained pilots
route to the drop,
abou*' 10:00
Their spe-
5.
took a circular
first to
sibility of "friendly fire"
avoid the pos-
from the
fleet
its
drop accuracy was
Men were
so scattered that
the regiment never formed elements
company
larger than
size
—and
units remained platoon size.
most
Some men
landed as far as twenty miles from their
Some went
below, then to approach their targets
drop zones.
from an unexpected
and drowned. One company landed
side, the south-
west. Along the way, things
went
seri-
the 507th, and
west side of the Merderet, facing the
troops following close behind them, off
as
most complete
—but
hit
it
into the sea al-
Utah beach.
had destroyed them
When
all.
Gavin's small force reached the
small town of Chef-du-Pont, a train was
moving from the railway ordered
it
station.
Gavin
assaulted. As soon as his
troopers opened
fire,
Germans aboard
scattered and sprinted for the bridge.
The
train contained
bottles and
nothing but empty
Normandy
cheese. Dis-
west to the riverbank, where they
they reached the Cotentin, they found
Time and retelling have obscured how random was the emergence of the battle groups. Gavin's own recollections
themselves in thick turbulent clouds.
are of organized units and certain ac-
bridge and approaches into a causeway
The clouds cleared
tions,
ously wrong. The planes encountered little
antiaircraft fire, but as
soon as
just as they reached
and historian
after historian has
was
the drop area, but by then the pilots
followed his pattern. In
had grown disoriented and only two
never that simple. Most groups were at
pathfinder teams hit their drop zones.
half strength
About a finders
half
hour behind the path-
came the 101st Airborne
men
and had
of other battalions
fact,
it
in their
ranks
and regiments.
heavy equipment, and nearly 7.000
dis-
covered that rising water had turned the
almost a mile wide. An island in the middle bristled with Germans,
who im-
mediately fired on them. Gavin ordered
Ostberg to take the bridge "whenever
would be
feasible,"
it
intending the assault
to take place that night. Ostberg, a de-
Divi-
sion with 485 aircraft, fifty-two gliders
appointed, Gavin ordered his troopers
For the next few days, the
little
termined man, had other
ideas.
bridges of the Merderet River were the
While Gavin footed back to La Fiere,
paratroopers. They, too, hit the clouds,
focus of several battles that raged be-
trying to unlock the tactical situation
and soon their formations became
tween the outnumbered paratroopers
facing him, an unfortunate incident oc-
The 82nd, about 6,400
and the defending Germans. Larger
curred at Chef-du-Pont. Impatient and
for
wildly dispersed.
paratroopers in 377 aircraft and
two
gliders, followed at
P.M.
They formed
The 82nd's
about 11:00
in the air
for the Cotentin efficiently
fifty-
and headed enough.
lead C-47s, containing the
505th Regiment and Major General
numbers ally
of
men from
both sides gradu-
moved toward them,
intensifying
the fighting. Fate gave the fiercest of these fights
—
at
The bridge because
it
La Fiere
at
spanned
—
all
to Gavin.
La Fiere was a place in the
bent on seizing the bridge, Ostberg
moved troopers
closer to the bank.
Suddenly a nearby German rose to surrender.
A
tired trooper shot him.
German
An-
stood up, and he too was
critical
other
stream
shot before anyone could
call a
cease-
MHQ 25
— Now
fire.
who might
the Germans,
have
surrendered altogether, found them-
down
selves unwilling to retreat
causeway and unable They would
the
to surrender.
charge even
a
though the bridge and the island
lay a
over a hundred yards from the
little
closest cover.
About
brave para-
fifty
troopers rushed straight into
German
As soon as they reached the arch of
fire.
loomed
still
700 yards away, and from ances, the
Germans held
all
a distant
appear-
though
it
fall
easily or
was defended by only
one German platoon. The Americans
more than
assaulted with
but the Germans held
all
a battalion,
morning. The
and the lack of radio communication
to be killed later in
Holland.) By this time, Maloney, sent
by Gavin to take
command, had
arrived
American troops
three miles southwest of the bridge at
of La Fiere did not
swiftly,
bullets. (Ostberg survived
wounds, only
into the area. of
the hedgerows, the small crossroads
separate parts of several forces were un-
his
Germans moving
town
aware of their comrades; the hedgerows
a
by
had been assembled by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J.B. Shanley about
stream of
down by
a defensive
perimeter. They were soon surrounded
The third group
men were
cut
marsh, they dug
to the
strongly.
it
the bridge, the colonel and five of his
machine-gun
led
many American
fell
paratroop elements
town piecemeal.
to assault the
in the early afternoon,
It
finally
and A Com-
La
behind German
Fiere, well
battalion
His
lines.
was the only one of the 508th
somewhat intact, though their assembly took time. When, at dawn, he had collected as many men as he could, Shanley found himself facing serious German pressure just holding his own position. Artillery that was dropped
soon found the range of his foxholes,
and machine-gun
He and
men
fire
raked his force.
and mounted a second charge. This one
pany of the 505th's
stopped at about the same point with
up positions on the riverbank, on the
On
though Ma-
north side of the road overlooking a
Timmes,
causeway similar to the one
ten-man patrol under the command of
roughly the same
effect,
loney was not wounded. Next, he and his
crew crawled onto the bridge ap-
1st Battalion took
at
Chef-du-
his
the
prepared for a siege.
morning
of D-Day, Colonel
in the apple orchard, sent a
Pont. Captain Robert D. Rae, with a
Lieutenant Louis Levy to
fortify the
La
proach and fought
at close
quarters
mixed batch of 507th and 101st Air-
Fiere bridge. As Levy and the patrol,
from one foxhole
to the next with
borne men, held the south side of the
without radio or further orders, kept
grenades and conclusively
of
rifle fire.
all
This went on in-
afternoon. In the midst
Gavin recalled Maloney to La
it,
Fiere,
and command
at
men had
road. Other 507th
already
other American paratrooper bands
they seemed a long way
passed by, but none of them stayed.
Meanwhile, very
The stalemate then took a bad turn.
anxious watch at the bridge, several
crossed to the west side of the river; but off.
Chef-du-Pont
passed to Captain Roy Creek.
pening as
it
little
had been hap-
should have on the west
They
all
When
the 505th began to fortify the east
sought objectives elsewhere.
side of the river, they sent
bank. The two regiments that should
smoke
end of the
have landed there had not, and only
sion forces.
causeway, and now the crouching
three significant battle groups had
side, at
The stubborn Germans wheeled up fieldpiece to the western
troopers
—numbering
endured direct
a
Creek
cover a
an
German platoon deploying
assault.
But help came from an unex-
An American
pected direction. carrying a
for
57mm
glider
antitank gun, lumber-
commanded
up an orange
signal, signifying friendly inva-
A
relieved Levy
on the west
Cauqigny, responded with or-
by
ange smoke. The 505th did not know
Colonel George V. Millett, had been cut
that their signal had been answered by a
and battered by the German 91st Di-
ten-man platoon, and assumed that the
The second
507th or the 508th were across the river
formed. The
just over thirty
artillery fire.
looked to the rear of his position to dis-
off
first,
vision around Amfreville.
was under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Charles
mander
of the
J.
Timmes, the com-
2nd Battalion
of the
in force. Shortly, a
German
battalion
with tank support attacked Levy's
little
group from the west. The platoon
—they succeeded
ing in on schedule, landed amidst
507th. After extricating himself from
fought bravely
seemed miraculous.
the marsh, where he had nearly
abling three of the
57mm
drowned, Timmes had moved toward
without
gun across the marsh and
the sound of gunfire near Amfreville. Along his cross-country route, he picked up more men. At Amfreville,
soon forced to retreat to the orchard. At
detachments of the 91st Division
holding only the eastern halves of the
Creek's position.
It
The troopers quickly turned the on the
field
scored a direct
hit.
Next, they turned
on the German infantry
it
to their rear,
breaking their ranks with a few shots.
As they
did, a reinforcing
toon arrived. The
crisis
American
pla-
had passed.
Just as the sun set. Creek discovered
large
Timmes and the Germans re-
cans began
a fighting
hammer
hedgerow
hedgerow, with the Ger-
to
critical
withdrawal,
Elsewhere, things were better. The critical
town
in the 82nd's area of oper-
ations was Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the
mans in pursuit. Finally, they reached the same orchard Gavin had left the
tersection of
Creek now had half a bridge, thirteen
night before. There, with their backs
meant German reinforcements
fell.
So instead of being wiped
is-
but,
bridgeways they had been
out,
land
—
But seeing
that offered a perfect field of fire to
Germans on
in dis-
themselves blinking with fatigue, but
dropped to capture.
fire.
tanks
the end of D-Day, the Americans found
two
sponded with heavy
German
from the 505th, they were
his party got close,
that they were overmatched, the Ameri-
the remaining
relief
waited entrenched, and as
a position north along the riverbank
the island. Within ten minutes, the
26
the western side
Trouble came elsewhere. Because of
fight to the last.
Ostberg organized
dead, and twenty-three wounded. But
transportation
hub
all
for the area, the in-
local roads.
Holding
it
to the
— beaches would be severely disrupted.
morning
Early on the
of D-Day,
fell
it
Edward
easily to Lieutenant Colonel
("Cannonball") Krause's 3rd Battalion
becoming the
of the 505th,
town
liberated in
had learned from
man, who
first
World War a
French Krause
II.
drunken French-
gaily offered to guide him,
there; the
enemy platoon remained Germans had thought the
fight over.
Krause found an ugly
that only one
Pilots confused by a
house
sight.
fire
had
dropped their sticks right on Sainte-
Germans had
Mere-Eglise. The
most
killed
of the unfortunate troopers as
they hit the ground. Dead and
GIs lay on the streets;
wounded
many were hang-
ing from telephone poles and buildings.
One man dangled from the church steeple for hours, saving his
by
life
feigning death. Fortunately, because of
Krause's timely arrival, by noon on D-
Day Sainte-Mere-Eglise had become the
Gen. Eisenhower speaks to soldiers of the 101st Airborne on June 5. The essential
center of 82nd Airborne operations
characteristic of paratroopers
was the
will to fight
on without orders or
officers.
and a target of German wrath.
By the time Gavin returned
to the La
stopped after
close-range duel of
a
bridgeheads. However, he did have radio contact with division headquar-
Fiere bridge in midafternoon, the situa-
bazooka rounds and point-blank can-
tion had deteriorated badly. As he ap-
non
with-
ters just outside Sainte-Mere-Eglise,
proached, retreating 505th troopers
out their shield, were exposed, cut
rushed past with news that the Ger-
down, or routed back across the cause-
where Ridgway had set up his command post, and he knew that the town
mans had broken through. Aghast,
way by accurate American
was under siege from several
Gavin ordered them to turn back. He
men
found Colonel Roy
the causeway, their success bolster-
who had
ranking man,
of about eighty
for
a small reserve
men, and double-timed
for the causeway,
runner
E. Lindquist, the
meanwhile sending a
Maloney's men,
still
at Chef-
du-Pont. Gavin arrived at the causeway ready for a fight.
fire.
still
The
foot soldiers,
now
fire.
Dolan's
controlled the approach to
Germans
ing their confidence. The
returned several more times, but troopers kept driving
them
back; how-
ever, the artillery barrage never ceased.
By morning, six more men.
it
would cost Dolan
tle
across the causeway.
505th, under the
John
J.
A Company
command
of the
of Captain
Dolan, dug in at the eastern
end of the causeway and took the tack head-on. The
Germans
at-
led with a
powerful barrage of mortar and ar-
in raising the ley,
dug
at
either Chef-du-Pont or La Fiere, so he
moved back toward Sainte-Mere-Eglise and established a
command
post be-
him
and he succeeded
embattled Colonel Shan-
Shanley had
in far to the west.
good news
little
to share, but at least
Gavin knew he was
As night
find
Gavin could do nothing further
lit-
band launched an armored attack
a jeep with a radio,
down
That afternoon, the same German battalion that had scattered Levy's
points. At
evening, headquarters finally sent
fell
still
fighting.
on D-Day, Gavin
to rest. For a blanket,
was a parachute
trooper.
all
dead
laid across a
He could not bring himself
down
he found a camouflage net, lay
against a hedgerow to give himself
tween the two bridgeheads. His awk-
shelter from artillery fire, and asleep.
had no word from Utah beach, so he did not
know
that the landing had
to
use the man's shroud for a blanket, so
ward position
baffled him. As yet, he
lay
he could
A runner soon brought
mons from Ridgway's
staff.
a
fell
sum-
Gavin
walked with Olson through the
full
then came on with two
gone smoothly and seaborne troops
moonlight back to Sainte-Mere-Eglise,
French Renault tanks, infantry run-
were bearing down on Sainte-Mere-
only to find that the message had been
tillery fire,
ning
in their
Dolan's
man
men
rifle
wake. Opposing them,
squatted in formerly Ger-
pits,
supported by two
bazooka teams.
The bazookas did thinly
Eglise. In fact, that night the
would reach east.
a point only about a mile
He had no
idea
for the paratroopers
their
work on the
armored French tanks; both
vanguard
what
fate
had held
on the west
He had no jeep shuttle between his two
side of
the Merderet.
or truck
to
critical
in error.
Ridgway was asleep himself
and annoyed
at
the
visit.
Frustrated and
weary, Gavin trudged back to his com-
mand
post and resumed his rest.
This
men
trivial
for years,
incident rankled in both
even though both were
MHQ 27
— Below, Brig. Gen. Gavin prepares for the
Amhem operation
September 1944. Paratroop generals jumped along with the privates, carrying the same load of weapons and ammu-
in
nition (inset) because there
was no assurance that any
offi-
cer would find his troops before he found the enemy. Also,
resupply by parachute drop was notoriously unreliable.
the rumors. They were determined to
hold what they had no matter what especially Sainte-Mere-Eglise.
The Germans had not finished with La Fiere. That morning, after a two-
hour mortar barrage, they launched a final attack
on the bridge with
all
they
had. Four French tanks led the way. valiant bazooka
Once again the
men
fought their duel, this time helped by a lone
57mm gun
tank, and
first
that stalled the others. But
Germans
The com-
to their rear.
bination wrecked the
a steel shield of
just thirty-five yards
gave the
it
wrecked tanks
from Dolan's lead
command
platoon, under the
of Lieu-
tenant William A. Oakley. The Germans
zeroed their mortars on the ground and kept up small-arms and tank
and was dragged
fire.
Oak-
almost immediately
ley fell, badly hit,
to the rear,
where he
died just a few hours later. Sergeant
William D. Owens, leader of the
draw from La Fiere that night, an im-
squad, replaced him.
are the first thing to be lost in the
plication Gavin resented.
self in a desperate
chaos of combat.
It
marked the begin-
ning of a coolness between Ridgway
and Gavin. Years ing,
Ridgway however,
own writsummons by
later, in his
Gavin described the
precarious triangle of French
was against them,
82nd soil.
in a
Time
for unless relieved,
and unless the overall invasion plan was working, the 82nd had no chance.
autobiography, de-
Ridgway had gathered only about one-
in his
if
he
had been awakened by a panicked mes-
quarter of his division. The
Germans
half his
men had
survivors had
Owens,
a quiet Detroit punch-drill
operator in peacetime, stood his ground
counter-
superior firepower. The 82nd's position
and ran from
them made
was anchored by corners resting on La
ing
war.
It
years after the
signaled a break in their friend-
ship, or at least the
end of reverence,
fired so fast they quit
had tanks, superior numbers, and vastly
a
it
Fiere, Chef-du-Pont,
Eglise. still
The
and Sainte-Mere-
division's lower echelons
ammo
When their
his
man
to
man
redistribut-
from the dead and wounded.
gunners
died, he took over
machine guns. Later he
said:
had no assurance of an advance and mortars were com-
the start of rivalry. Ridgway would
from the beachhead. Soldiers' rumors
The
maintain that a distraught Gavin had
spread that the invasion had failed.
ing in like machine-gun
come
Ridgway and Gavin, however, ignored
how
to ask for permission to with-
and the
ammunition. His
from the heat. The company first sergeant grabbed the wounded and threw them back into the fight.
attack on La Fiere. Both of
mentioning
fallen already,
little
machine guns
senger bringing news of a point of
28
of June 7 found the
as related here. Ridgway,
scribes the visit from Gavin as
MHQ
Dawn
first
Owens found himsituation. More than
no doubt blameless. Communications
artillery shells
it
was possible
fire.
to live
I
don't
through
it.
know Then
was
the 325th in support and assisted by the
I
had
too small for proper landings, so most
8th Infantry, would attack north toward
tooi< Private
Mc-
crash-landed heavily. Then, those
came again and we gave
the infantry
everything
we
was so hot
it
quit firing.
I
Clatchy's BAR, he had been wounded
survived the crash
The
trap.
field
came under
fire
who
Montebourg
from
sion already held. Meanwhile, the 1st
to expand the area the divi-
ran out of ammunition.
the Germans. Shaken soldiers were un-
Battalion of the 325th would attack
able to defend themselves as they
across the river, using a fortuitously dis-
fought to get out of the flimsy planes.
covered ford across the Merderet be-
zone was
tween the two causeways, to relieve
fired
I
They were rested
With
it
this
mm.
60
until
it
I
men who
a couple of
I
earlier,
ward a double death
then took a machine gun that belonged to
and I
tiiem
gun
had. The machine
killed.
took a very near
The gun had no
hit.
tripod, so it.
strewn with crashed gliders and dead
Timmes
They then
in-
and one other machine gun and a
and dying glidermen, while Raff could
tended to smash the Germans
at
only look on helplessly.
Cauquigny from the
across a pile of dirt and used
mortar,
we stopped them, but
they
had gotten to within twenty-five yards of
us.
Then, abruptly, the Germans called a
Owens was down
halt.
He
men.
to fourteen
kept firing and yelling for
them
to
hold on. He had no radio because his
man
radio
In minutes, the landing
had taken a direct hit from a
German 88mm gun,
Although
time the 82nd had
at that
in the orchard.
rear.
Simultaneous-
Lindquist was to assault the Chef-du-
ly,
no radio link with the outside world,
Pont causeway with 507th and 508th
one patrol had gotten out word of the
troopers and relieve Shanley. Millett's
paratroopers' predicament, so the
com-
manders on Utah beach knew the
situ-
ation. As
soon as General
J.
force
and
Lawton
would attack toward the 325th men
in the process
break out themselves.
The assault by the 505th proved
("Lightning Joe") Collins landed on D-
cult.
diffi-
The troopers and glidermen ad-
so he sent a run-
plus-one and heard, he ordered a re-
vanced rapidly against heavy, deter-
ner to Dolan describing the situation
serve tank battalion, the 746th under
mined German
answer came
Lieutenant Colonel D.G. Hupfer, for-
hedgerow; however, the 8th Infantry
ward
sisting
and asking back
for orders. His
in writing: "I don't
know
of a bet-
to break through.
than this to die." Owens
ter place
passed along the message, and the sur-
resistance,
was not able
to
hedgerow
make such
to as-
rapid
progress, stalling the overall attack.
On
the
morning
commanders were
Lower-level
of D-plus-one, Ger-
al-
forces launched an assault on
lowed to make their own decisions on
raised a flag with a red cross. Firing ta-
Sainte-Mere-Eglise. They opened with
the assault across the Merderet. Trouble
then ceased. The Germans
an artillery barrage, supported with
began with Lindquist's group
indicated they wanted to evacuate their
self-propelled guns. Lieutenant Colonel
du-Pont, where Shanley was ordered by
Ben Vandervoort's 505th troopers resisted with verve. They had been hold-
radio to clear out the opposite end of the
at-
ing well against the Germans, and their
ed.
to secure the bridge at La Fiere.
confidence ran high. They yielded no
patrol forward, led by Lieutenant
vivors
hung
pered
off,
wounded
on. Suddenly, the
— and
Germans
their other soldiers
went with them. One platoon had broken the back of the tempt
The
last
German
had risen to a height, and now
tide
Gavin could plan his own attack.
He had
ground except and
mobile reserve. As
a small
came
man
to evacuate
wounded
to readjust fields of fire. At noon,
the 8th Infantry under Colonel James
he
Van
Fleet arrived, along with Hupfer's
kept moving Lindquist and a scratch
and
Raff's tanks, followed
pressure
bunch
at the critical points,
to the rescue.
Both he and Ridg-
way wondered how long they could hold, for German infantry, armor, and continued to threaten Sainte-
artillery
Mere-Eglise.
Unknown
to the airborne
commanders, help was coming: The
ar-
Edson
mored
task force under Colonel
D. Raff
had landed on D-Day as planned,
and Raff rushed them toward Sainte-
Mere-Eglise with
all
the speed the
armor could make. But two miles
east
Germans had con-
of the town, the
Collins himself.
by General
With the tanks and the
causeway before an attack was attemptShanley sent a twenty-man scratch
Woodrow W. to fight
Millsaps,
which proceeded
one of the hardest engagements
Everyone considered
of the invasion.
Millsaps an eccentric, but this night he
proved pure warrior. As his
help of the 8th Infantry, Vandervoort's
struck machine
paratroopers counterattacked immedi-
At
first his
gun
after
machine gun.
the
men
Mere-Eglise area were decisively
ied
them. They kept moving forward,
thrown back that afternoon. The
methodically destroying the
German
tion of the
town was
After the 8th
libera-
tried to run, but Millsaps stead-
and the armor had
ar-
rate fire,
hedgerow
after
hedgerow. Then
ground held by the
they reached a road junction near the
82nd no longer seemed so tenuous. But
causeway where three machine gunners
the bridges remained blocked, half held
and riflemen waited. Again Millsaps
rived, the triangle of
by strong
German
forces,
and the
Millett,
on
men
urged his
forward, and again they
German
positions. Mill-
the west side of the Merderet, remained
saps himself was knocked
occupied a vantage
stranded. Ridgway and Gavin evolved a
times by
it
point overlooking the landing zones
plan.
designated for gliders. The 88s hit four
with fresh 325th
vehicles. Then, as the
of Raffs
armored
sun
the gliders
set.
came winging
in to-
German
machine guns with grenades and accu-
final.
stall
column,
of
troops in the Sainte-
ately.
88mm Raff's
ap-
column buckled, and some
Timmes, and Shanley
it
men
proached the head of the causeway, they
structed a strongpoint of infantry and
cannon. Not only did
at Chef-
units, isolated
They would break the deadlock
just landed.
On
glider infantry,
the
morning
who had
of June 8,
D-plus-two, the 505th, with elements of
destroyed the
German
he nor his
men
down
three
grenades, but neither
hesitated.
a killing frenzy; each
They were
man was
paying no attention to those fell.
They fought and
in
alone,
who
killed until the
MHQ 29
Germans broke before
Now
their charge.
Lindquist needed only to charge
break through to Shanley or Timmes,
With the dawn of June
the causeway.
But Lindquist decided not to mount
He had seen what the
the attack.
fix-
— that
artillery
near the causeway
—and he
ated Millsaps had not
three,
His night assaults
D-plus-
the river they could find. By the time
difficult decisions.
Gavin ran, crouching, back from the
9,
—which had not been
causeway,
A
Gavin's responsibility because of their
it
was 9:00
a.m.
spring-morning calm
over the
fell
placid Merderet waters.
he
planned to send over the bridge, block-
that his newly arrived 90th Division be
with the
was
used to force the La Fiere causeway.
except for the
the American positions. But Gavin saw
Just before dawn, Shanley withdrew the
He was far too proud and determined to let others do what had been assigned to
survivors of Millsaps's charge, squan-
him. He discussed
dering a military advantage gained
agreed, and Ridgway gave the mission
falling
would
feared shells
ing
it.
After
go.
all
hit the trucks
his effort, Millsaps
and he begged Lindquist to
mortified,
But Lindquist would not be moved.
through horrible send a
relief force
sacrifice.
He
did not
men
—sweated
to him.
it
it.
who
with Gavin,
Gavin was to force a crossing
might have
deep green landscape,
a pretty,
hump
of the bridge the focus,
German
that raked
fire
no scenery; he worried about the
charge stood bets,
chance. To hedge his
little
Gavin called over Colonels Ma-
men
loney and Rae, both
toward Amfreville. For the mission,
Maloney looked the part that
augmented
already
his
it
causeway
clear that he thought the
and drive the Germans back westward
Ridgway
glid-
ermen. Their commander had made
full
ammunition, and medical
food, water,
Ridgway refused to consider
been
It
— low on
across for another
day. Meanwhile. Shanley's
was a huge man,
he trusted.
six feet four
day.
He
inches
tall
stretched forces with the 3rd Battalion
and about 240 pounds. The morning of
under the command of
the assault, a close artillery round had
by 1st Battalion
Lieutenant Colonel Charles A. Carrell,
sent a large fragment his way, ripping
Colonel Terry
and one company of 507th paratroopers
his
commanded
in the side of his head.
supplies
North of La
in their foxholes.
Fiere. the
325th
men
led
commander Lieutenant Sanford made their move
across the ford. As they crossed, they
drew not
a shot,
of the 325th,
by Captain Rae. This unit
helmet and gouging a deep wound
who
Maloney,
but as soon as they
had been defending the La Fiere side of
could have honorably stood
down from
hedgerow, German ma-
the causeway since D-Day and had been
the action, had his head bandaged and
chine gunners found their range. The
severely punished by the Germans. In
found a new helmet.
men
support, Gavin also had use of the 90th
reached the
first
advanced, but the fight became
confused in the hedgerows. Companies lost contact
fight
with one another, and the
grew desperate
at close quarters.
Ridgway, watching from across the
remembered
it
river,
one of the most
as
in-
Division's artillery,
82nd
It
proved
fruitless,
and Sanford and
his
men ended up in retreat, joining Timmes beneath the apple trees. During the withdrawal of one platoon. Private First Class Charles N.
DeGlopper
stood defiantly with his Browning auto-
matic
rifle,
acting as rear guard for his
friends until he
was
killed.
He was
the
what
artillery the
could assemble, and twelve
itself
Sherman
They scheduled the
tanks.
morning
tack for the
at-
was hardly ready
for the task
had
it
drawn. The objective looked daunting far shore.
500 yards across
men would
The Merderet was
at that point,
and the
be silhouetted without
cover on the causeway as they charged its
length.
hulking form and blood-streaked stubble of red beard.
Gavin gave brief instructions. He told
Maloney
Psychologically, the 3rd Battalion
from the
When Gavin summoned him that morning, he noticed how tough Maloney looked with his
of June 10, D-
plus-four.
tense combat actions he saw in the war.
To make matters worse,
this
battalion had been part of the 101st and
stantly
if
to have Rae ready to charge in-
the 325th assault faltered.
wanted them
and attack through the 325th to carry
in
He off
to "yell their heads
order
along the faint-of-heart. Rae
and Maloney walked back hard, for a glance
would be under
to brief the
who took
anxious troopers,
the news
showed every man he
fire
from three sides
for
500 yards of hard running. Maloney told
Timmes and
largest man then in the 82nd, and those who were there remember the last sight
was given
of him, his six-foot-seven-inch, 240-
way and Gavin were going
pound frame illuminated by the
the transferred battalion. His attitude
to
was
walled road that afforded a covered ap-
flicker-
ing muzzle flashes of his weapon.
When
dead of multiple wounds,
he
finally fell
his
comrades were on
safer ground. De-
Glopper was awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor, but his action,
been
in vain.
The Germans
too,
still
had held
Cauquigny, the causeway remained useless to the Allies,
30
to give
command structure— had been humiliating failures. Now Collins suggested
was
MHQ
Ridgway faced
up the tanks
while, Olson lined
direct fire support at any targets across
Millett himself was captured.
and
325th
now
As for
Millett's
and a battalion of the
sat bottled
up with Shanley.
men, they were unable
to
at a preinvasion
them they owed
it
reorganization. Carrell thought Ridg-
men. They would
give
to the
morning
of the attack.
closer look, he
it
it
on
To get
a
and the commander of
his
a try.
move
into jump-off position using a
proach to the causeway. At 10:30
for their mission.
Gavin himself was uneasy with the
little
to
Gavin ordered the 325th glidermen
to sacrifice
and the troops had
infectious,
enthusiasm
82nd
artillery, small
loose at the Germans' positions
west bank.
It
a.m.,
arms, and tanks cut
on the
was vicious and accurate.
the causeway as close as they dared.
seemed the whole Stunned Germans with bleeding ears jumped from
Gavin precisely pinpointed targets he
their positions
wanted the artilleryman
causeway
90th Division eral
artillery,
Brigadier Gen-
John M. Devine, crawled out onto
to hit.
Mean-
Gavin thought
it
shoreline caught
fire.
and dashed across the
to surrender.
The barrage
— ceased, and a short
rage with a
followed.
lull
The
"firestorm of shell and whining bullets."
smoke screen
to shield the
Yet that
welcome
pened
as a
it
end the bar-
charging troopers. Everyone waited for its
longtime friend, remembered
to
Americans had planned
sight, but
— the
never hap-
it
had no
artillery batteries
smoke. Then the Germans recovered from the barrage and began
firing.
The
wall shielding the glidermen vibrated
with the impact of bullets, and
German
first
bunch
of
glidermen did
Arms pumping
not waver.
hard, they
charged on and reached the other
miraculously nearly intact. until they
had made
it
It
across that they
into view as
it.
wounded, and those seeking
filled
the space behind and beside
The wreck
soldiers
them
who
offered respite to shocked
could find nothing to
on. Rae's
men charged
men
loaded,
Soon, other glidermen overcame
their
fired, re-
and ran some more. The wave
olive drab carried forward until
it
into the German embankment. With them went many glidermen who had
down many. Others
also been trying to get through, and
moved
officers
and NCOs
they charged forward, but they didn't
German
appear. Incensed, he ran to Carrell by
simply
the wall and shouted, "Go! Go! Go!"
ditches. As Gavin watched, the cause-
though bodies were already stacked
way became strewn with the
the gutters
Carrell yelled back,
can do
"I
don't think
I
"Why
asked,
in his tracks
and
knew
"I'm sick," Carrell responded.
and he
almost to a whisper
fell
"Okay, you're through." In
said,
Carrell's place. Colonel
the 325th's
frozen immobility, as
if
and
living
into
by recoiling
somehow avoid death. Gavin was the moment between suc-
they could
not?"
Gavin's voice
nerve and lay in the road
Many men withered
the dead.
it!"
Gavin stopped
cut
fire
lost
Harry Lewis,
commander, appointed the
cess
it
and
He, Ridgway, and Ma-
failure.
loney ran out onto the causeway and
urged the in his
men on
of
swept
forward. Accurate
shock and, with
kicking them,
out of
way and broke the jam, and
charge rolled on. Troopers ran,
in relentlessly
move
the tank
Kicking, prying, and
like a football line.
pushing, they manhandled
up German positions
their
come
cover
the
crouching on a
rise to the rear, expect-
Still
dead, the
they pushed on, and they began rolling
sharp actions at close quarters.
ed the glidermen to
was not
no one had followed them.
realized
and mortars pummeled the causeway and the shoreline. Gavin,
artillery
side,
wrecked tank proved an obstacle. The
—Maloney bellowing
deep voice, Ridgway setting a
move
now
the causeway and the bridge
—
in
with running, shout-
filled
ing Americans sweeping around the
When
wreck and forward.
the wave hit
the Germans, they withered and began
surrendering in droves.
Many who were
there, including
Gavin, give Rae and his troopers credit for carrying the day,
and they did break
the attack loose: but they had help. The
small contingent of glidermen had gone
regiment's S-3, Arthur W. Gardner, to
calm example
command.
abled tank blocking the way. Troopers
first
remember Gavin
were
German defenses, so when Rae's assault came, German fire at the causeway had
without cover, yet none of them was
slackened somewhat. Rae's arrival con-
Gardner ordered to
move, and they
his
did,
new command but not as they
should have. Most of the lead platoon took
off,
up, a
but as the next group moved
man
fell
wall, a bullet
men
dead in the gap
through his brain. The
behind him froze. As a
initial assault
in the
result, the
consisted of about three
squads, thirty men. They charged into the combined weapons of the better part of a
German
regiment. Captain Al Ire-
land, Gavin's S-1 with the
505th and a
you can do
hit.
as he tried to
it."
telling soldiers, "Son,
All three officers
The forward observer
tillery,
a dis-
crouching
for the ar-
in his foxhole,
was
and grappled
in the teeth of the
solidated a toehold at Cauquigny, but
surviving
Germans beyond
that toehold
stunned when Ridgway appeared and
fought on desperately to contain the
thanked him
good barrage that
breakthrough, and the glidermen and
wave.
paratroopers trying to push beyond
for the
had preceded the
first
Gavin turned to Maloney and told
him
to bring
and Rae
mad
led
on Rae. Maloney signaled, about ninety troopers
rush onto the causeway.
Now
Cauquigny west toward Amfreville ran into stiffer
and
stiffer resistance.
in a
Once the wreckage was cleared,
the
Gavin returned to the causeway and
•jiF^^|t?^r^, / ar
1 A glider lies amid "Rommel's asparagus" in a Held near Ste.-Mere-Eglise, damaged but at least upright. Many glidermen when paratroops failed to clear the landing zones of German defenders and obstacles as scheduled.
died
MHQ 31
After the
D-Day operations, both American airborne
101st (above) conducted minor operations in the
continued pushing
needed every
man
men
forward. They
possible to strength-
en their assault. When, around noon, all
men and
available
went
across, Gavin self,
to
tanks were
Cauquigny him-
where he found glidermen and
paratroopers
still
routing the
last
Germans out of firing posiHe learned that his forward Timmes's and Shanley's
him
as the pro-
With to
attack across the Cotentin to isolate Cherbourg,
his rage
push pun-
ishing offensive operations.
men, Rae's troop-
Medics gave him an injection and evac-
battalions of 325th
and Timmes's and Shanley's, he
plans.
Ridgway
in order to
set
make
Gavin wanted his troops pushing
westward
as relentlessly as possible to
expand the bridgehead and to beat back
men were
that he
hanging on alone.
He needed them now
to
expand the
As he moved gingerly along the riverbank, Gavin found a dead paratrooper,
still
the
Germans from the counterattack knew must come.
Sure enough, even as Gavin conferred with
bridgehead farther.
in harness,
hanging from
a tree. After the recent vicious action,
The Ger-
the sight angered
him
mans had shot
the helpless man.
deeply.
command post. German guns were sending panicked men streaming rearward, and when
the river to the 325th
Gavin reached the 325th, chaos ruled.
He headed for Shanley first, because he had to know what shape the in after
ence with Ridgway and ran back across
He found Shanley's unit battered still game. After grouping two
but
off to find
relieving
82nd led the
came the determination
ers,
positions.
32
rather than capturing
resolute
fast,
were kept on to do the work of ordinary infantry. Troops of the
while the
fessional code dictated.
tions.
troopers had expanded the bridgehead
MHQ
divisions
vicinity,
Ridgway
late that after-
noon, the Germans hit back, hard. As
evening break.
A
fell,
the Americans started to
radio message from Colonel
Lewis, the 325th
commander,
told
Gavin the new bridgehead was collapsing.
He broke
off his
hurried confer-
Lewis had collapsed from shock. uated him to the rear. (No one knew
it
then, but he had cancer and died just
months
later.) In his
Colonel Herbert
place Lieutenant
regimental
Sitler, the
executive officer, took Gavin found Sitler
at
command.
Cauquigny,
re-
cently taken, preparing a withdrawal.
Gavin asked what he was doing. responded,
"I
Sitler
can't hold."
Gavin's eyes became icy gray
slits,
and he told the shaken colonel before him, "We are going to counterattack with every resource
we have
— includ-
ing you, regimental clerks, headquarters people,
and anyone
else
we can
get
— our hands on with a weapon." Sitler
voiced strong misgivings. The division
blanched but did as he had been or-
was badly understrength.
Then Gavin located Maloney. The giant, somehow unscathed in the
the
charge, stood calm and ready for in-
one mustered just
dered.
They ran back
structions.
to the cause-
combat companies,
men
around 50
totaled
In
many
of
actual strength
or less
12); there
have been over 150. At
least
(at least
should
two of his
way, where, for the second time that
regimental commanders protested the
Maloney stood on the road and
attack order. Gavin concurred, and he
day,
forced
men
membered
back into it
battle.
Gavin
re-
took the issue to Ridgway.
Ridgway was unbending, and the
as a magnificent sight
jumped
divi-
planned. Gavin's
Maloney, this time holding a broken-off
sion
tree limb in his hands, bellowing that
protests and Ridgway's insistence that
no one was going
they continue attacking fueled
place was
to get by him. Gavin's
now with
his forward ele-
ments, and he headed for the front lines, farther
west of the bridgehead.
That night, the 90th Division arrived
off as
ings between the two
derstand the limits of his
own men.
There were many other units available
Time reporter William Walton, who
was long past time
accompanied the airborne into Nor-
for the job,
beach were now clear of Germans, and
when
American tanks and infantry plowed
withdrawn and the division
The Wehrmacht had
felt
Ridgway was wrong, that he did not un-
and relieved the 82nd. The roads to the
inland.
feel-
ill
men. Gavin
and
it
the paratroops should have been
Yet the breakout attack went off
lost its
The desperately understrength
chance to concentrate superior forces
well.
against the beach. Allied air pressure
companies reached
all
their assigned
prevented them from reinforcing at the
objectives. Airborne
moment, and every day thousands of British and American troops
acquire a reputation for performance.
streamed across those beaches into
pressed by what those "crazy charac-
enemy behind Utah beach, caught between
ters" could do.
strong forces on the beaches and the
heavy rain from a bridgehead at Pont-
stubborn resistance of the paratroop-
I'Abbe, carried
decisive
Normandy. The
ers,
initial
crust of
had been ripped up badly. The Ger-
mans had
yielded the beaches and the
Higher
was beginning
command was once
The
them
again im-
they were after Normandy. their dead lay strewn
Though
from Sainte-Mere-
Eglise to Amfreville to La Haye-duPuits, their deeds
and rakish
air cap-
time of the one of the nation's greatest
to the outskirts
of La Haye-du-Puits with such speed that the other divisions were
left lag-
command had
successes.
And above them
image of their
lean,
rose the
handsome, and
ar-
commander. Slim Jim Gavin. He had long been known to higher
ticulate
strength regiments became more so,
command. Now the press took him, and he became a public figure. He had achieved more from his war than he had ever planned, but now he wanted sole command of a division. And he was
con-
and several battalion commanders
about to get
cutting off
were wounded, including Maloney and
halt the paratroops to protect their ex-
from behind.
posed flanks. The hedgerow fighting
to
proved costly once again. UnderAt this point the 82nd's involvement over, but
it
the Cotentin Peninsula. Along the way, it
their exploits
final attack, in
cause of the double blow dealt them
vital role in
If
had not been widely reported before,
tured the American imagination at a
fears
ging, and higher
tinued to play a
scended on the division.
were
But Gavin's
also confirmed.
to
low Merderet country, principally be-
might well have been
mandy, relaxes at Mont-St.-Michel after its liberation.
rebuilt.
mauled the better parts of four Ger-
— including the
man
divisions
91st,
which had shot defenseless para-
hated
Shanley. Other notables, such as Lieu-
tenant Louis Levy, died.
82nd Airborne Division
When
the
finally pulled
out of the front lines to return to Eng-
it.
William B. Walton, the Time reporter
who jumped with 6,
Gavin's stick on June
landed in an apple
tree,
from which
he extricated himself with some culty. Then, in the first
diffi-
few hours on
troopers caught in trees. While Cher-
land, sixteen of
bourg was being taken, a new corps
regimental and battalion commanders
the ground, he located Gavin. Walton
the VIII, under Major General Troy
had been
captured, or wounded.
covered Gavin 's activities and those of
Middleton
—was
created. Middleton
was
given the 82nd to use as needed to
punch southward; by the end assist with the
breakout from the
hedgerow country: The 82nd was to provide the main punch in the center. Ridgway was happy to oblige to please higher
command, but Gavin
original twenty-one
In total, the division lost killed,
46 percent
in
most the
it.
lost
combat
82nd Airborne to
until the division
England.
It
was the
beginning of a lifelong friendship.
throughout
Normandy campaign,
never of
divisions; however,
the
was sent back
wounded, and missing.
Losses like these have paralyzed
of June,
Middleton had ordered the division to
killed,
its
the 82nd
effectiveness in spite
And somewhere, during
the des-
T.
Michael Booth and Duncan Spencer
are the authors of Paratrooper, a biog-
raphy of General James M. Gavin to be
perate night actions and the bloody
published by Simon
& Schuster
slog through the hedgerows, legend de-
April,
from which
is
this article
in
adapted.
MHQ 33
—
Send him back to ALGIERS
NECESSARY."
IF
Even as paratroops were dropping on Normandyy Winston Churchill flew into an unexpected tempest: the rage of Charles de Gaulle, by Don Cook
the long annals of General Charles
prevented from breaking with him
would only rouse Roosevelt's choleric
de Gaulle's relentlessly acrimonious,
completely and ordering him forcibly
feelings
Inimperious,
and often insuperable be-
havior toward his Anglo-American
War
during World
lies
quite
matched
his
II,
al-
no episode
stormy performance
with Winston Churchill and the British
London on the
in
eve of D-Day.
At the time, only minimal anodyne facts ever
appeared about what had
gone on with de Gaulle and
at
in
Whitehall
General Dwight D. Eisenhower's
invasion headquarters near Southamp4,
through
6. If
any jour-
ton from Sunday, June
D-Day on Tuesday, June nalist
had been privy
would have been
to the full story,
killed
it
by wartime cen-
off for fair
Normandy. For de Gaulle, the
became
af-
part of his litany of resent-
European
Common
Market
in
January
1963 and for withdrawing
all
French
forces tary
NATO
from the
command
in
integrated mili-
March 1966.
of
Nevertheless, the heat of the ex-
chill at that climactic
something of
a
time became
branding iron searing
in four
In their subsequent
iron strength of leadership, his elo-
quence and
intellect, his
grasp of his-
tory, his qualities as a military
his extraordinary
man, and
achievement
in rous-
war memoirs,
the ashes of defeat to
make her
a fight-
both Churchill and de Gaulle largely
ing power alongside the Allies. The his-
glossed over their confrontation. Full
torian and writer Harold Nicolson re-
details
after the
lates that
when he remarked
diaries, writings,
chill that
de Gaulle
emerged only gradually
in other
British
memoirs,
and French participants. Chur-
morning-after personal
telegram to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, forgot
changes between de Gaulle and Chur-
his difficulties with de Gaulle,
and he had been through plenty
ing France almost single-handedly from
chill, in a
drama
Whatever
could only admire the Frenchman's
ing for vetoing British entry into the
tory books, and
in the far greater historic
of mercurial
eventually part of his conscious reason-
and recollections by the handful of
quickly blew itself
man
temperament, but he was not a hater.
years of war, in his heart of hearts he
though it was, the de Gaulle affair never made the headlines or the hisit
and make matters worse.
Churchill was a
—and
ments against the Anglo-Saxons
war
the D-Day success.
34
airborne forces were beginning to take
sorship anyway. Therefore, stormy
out
MHQ
flown out of England just as the Allied
about his rage of the night
before and retold what had happened
but not rather chill
all
flat,
of
what happened
—
in a
minimal summation. Chur-
was well aware of Roosevelt's an-
to
Chur-
surely a great
man," the prime minister sputtered, "A great
man? Why,
he's selfish, he's arro-
gant, he thinks he's the center of the universe.
.
.
.
He
.
.
.
You're right, he's
a great man!"
Not so with Roosevelt, who was simply
contemptuous and dismissive of de
Gaulle from beginning to end. Roosevelt's obsessive, bitter,
its
mark on history. In a towering rage, Churchill denounced de Gaulle as "an
tipathy, not to say hostility,
Gaulle, and he probably reasoned that
well-known, open
obstructionist saboteur" and was barely
telling the president the full story
tics
toward de
"is
and even ran-
corous hostility toward de Gaulle was a fact of
— going back
wartime
to the days
poli-
when
in defeat by the
American moves or actions that might
don, he submitted a
Nazi armies in June 1940. De Gaulle
remotely be construed as recognition of
Eisenhower
France was crushed
memorandum
to
proposing to
se-
in Algiers,
the Free French in replacement of
lect special
fight for France's
Vichy France. But by the spring of
to
honor. But Roosevelt chose to continue
1944, the Free French flag was flying
and divisions going into France, who
an unnecessarily sympathetic and
over virtually every capital and posses-
would move quickly
friendly diplomatic relationship with
sion of the old French Empire except
and town
halls to take over civil
the head of the defeated, collabora-
Indo-China, and a
istration
and
flew to
ment
London
to carry
at Churchill's arrange-
on the
tionist, pro-Nazi
Vichy government,
corps of French
full
was fighting with the
soldiers
Allies in
under General Alphonse Juin.
Free French liaison officers
accompany the various
Vichy
Allied corps
to the prefectures
admin-
replacements for
install
But the American po-
officials.
Marshal Philippe Retain, in the hopes of
Italy
influencing France not to go over com-
Roosevelt was setting the stage for the
ton, D.C., simply pigeonholed de
D-Day showdown.
Gaulle's
The United States
pletely to the Nazis.
Once again,
continued diplomatic relations with Vichy France until November 1943.
North
as in the invasion of
Africa, the president
was adamant
litical staff in
both Algiers and Washing-
memorandum, and he never
got an acknowledgment or an answer. Instead of accepting de Gaulle's pro-
symbol when he
about excluding de Gaulle from any
posal,
arrived in London, quite alone, in June
planning or military involvement in the
nition, the U.S.
invasion of France. After getting ashore
sifting out a
De Gaulle was only 1940, but he was a
a
much-needed
for England, also standing alone, Hitler's
with
armies having overrun virtually
of western Europe.
all
ally
But
in pitting
himself against Marshal Retain and
all
North Africa, the Americans had
in
wound up making an infamous
with a senior Vichyite, Admiral Jean
power
that Vichy France stood for, de Gaulle
in
fire
dent Roosevelt seemed
— for
whom
Retain
to be the real France or the true
whom
Francois Darlan,
was
also pitting himself against Presi-
deal
they had placed
in Algiers in return for a cease-
order to the French forces under his
control. De Gaulle was kept out of
North Africa
for six
months. What did
France, washed up and finished as a Eu-
Roosevelt expect the Allied armies to do
ropean power of any importance, either
when
in the
war or
in the
postwar world that
Roosevelt was already beginning to
own mind.
fashion in his
grew
steadily
government on France but
a de Gaulle
instead expected "other political forces"
During the next three years. General de Gaulle's Free French
they landed in France? Repeatedly
the president said he would not impose
movement
and with increasing speed,
to emerge.
Was he looking
Darlan deal in France
for
itself?
another
That was
de Gaulle's suspicion, as he later
made
which would have implied recog-
speaking American
fects.
how
French pre-
They were supposed
to take over
French towns and villages landing. France Italy, Sicily,
was
Americans, a
tive
The president's
work
of
nious and high-handed argument and
tive to
confrontation with both the English
lated that "you
and the Americans, so did Roosevelt's
French Committee of National Libera-
stubborn temper and resentment. He
tion in setting
was not used litical
to being thwarted in a po-
power game. The president ma-
neuvered
first to
refuse to allow partici-
pation of any kind by de Gaulle's Free
French
in the
November 1942 invasion
way
may up
in France, but
consult" with the
civil
it
emphasized that
said
committee or group
ment
of France even
on
as the govern-
a provisional
rective
changed to read "you
British tried to get the di-
—but even
sult"
replacement of Marshal Retain and the
by Roosevelt personally.
De Gaulle,
Vichy collaborationists as the embodi-
lend-lease assistance to the Free French for three years,
and he balked
at
any
Conseil d'Etat, with ready access to the
who
It
was Debre,
in effect,
fingered the collaborationists and
searched out the Gaullists for prompt
promotion when the liberation came. Debre
later served as de Gaulle's
prime
minister in the difficult period of the
ending of the Algerian war. Roosevelt had prepared another gra-
to check, hamstring, obstruct,
direct
of Vichy
of the staff of the
tuitous slap for the Free French. In-
The
He withheld
government bureaucracy
member
de
buried inside
ferred shall constitute a recognition of
basis."
of France.
a secret
who was
"nothing you do under the powers con-
and deny General de Gaulle's inexorable
ment
administration
every step of
of North Africa.
the
He fought
Eisenhower before D-Day stipu-
each administra-
Michel Debre,
Gaulle supporter,
civil-service files.
final political direc-
for
department of France. This was the
ship" of de Gaulle in France. But Roo-
amid much acrimo-
to the
of "Gaullist loyalists"
had been prepared
from power
stature rose, albeit
list
in clos-
unknown
est secrecy, certainly
France as a
would not budge.
and Sardinia, and de Gaulle
But de Gaulle could not and certainly
the
sevelt
after the
to be treated like
would not be ignored. Already,
ported to General George C. Marshall in
French Empire, one
was
to be ignored.
Washington "an almost idolatrous wor-
in the
crash
to act like
while ousting the Vichy proconsuls colony after another. As de Gaulle's
who were
lottesville, Virginia, to take a
course in
clear in his
re-
officers,
sent to a training center at Char-
month by month, against the collaborationist Vichy regime inside France
Memoirs. Eisenhower
War Department began hundred or so French-
this
will
con-
was curtly refused
of course,
rency into France, as had already been
done
in
French North Africa and other
parts of the French Empire, the Ameri-
cans had prepared a special issue of
in-
vasion currency to replace the Vichy
had his own
clear ideas for the liberation of France.
In
stead of introducing Free French cur-
September 1943, long before inva-
sion preparations got under
way
in
Lon-
bills after
the Allied landings. Not only
did Roosevelt airily dismiss the question of
who was supposed
to back these
invasion notes, he also refused to allow
MHQ 35
— La Republique Frangaise
the words
or
even Liberte, Egalite, Fratemite to ap-
of cars sped south
airport to carry de Gaulle,
by only three other French a
government you
of a
when
they'll call
As D-Day neared, de Gaulle struck
he hoped
talk to de Gaulle but
"your conversation
an empire."
it
Churchill he would not send
airily told
anyone to
over
it's
.
.
will result in in-
.
ducing him to actually
assist in the liber-
from the
accompanied
ments with the French. The president
officers, to
secluded railroad siding near the
Channel coast where Churchill was staying in his private railway train
—
to
be near Eisenhower's headquarters in
the
Southampton
Forest. Churchill
in Algiers.
ation of France without being imposed
walked along the siding
Ignored by Roosevelt but with France
by us on the French people as their gov-
de Gaulle with open arms, but there
and the French Empire firmly behind
ernment." Nor would he invite de Gaulle
was nothing romantic or warm about
him, on May 27, 1944, de Gaulle's
to
French Consultative Assembly voted
at
asked for a meeting. The British would
lounge
the general's behest to change the
have to bear the consequences of Roo-
certain tense amiability.
name and
status of the four-year-old
sevelt's policy
Committee
of National Liberation into
back from his headquarters
Washington unless the general
on
first
to greet
the general. They climbed aboard the
On
their own.
car,
and the
talks
began with a
the British side with Churchill
his belated invitation,
were Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden;
a full-blown "provisional government of
Churchill told de Gaulle that he was
the powerful Labor party figure Ernest
the French Republic." D-Day was only
sending his personal York transport to
ten days away.
Algiers for his journey to
A gauntlet was deliberately thrown down to Roosevelt and Churchill.
that the general
France had a government, whether the
were scarcely enough.
Anglo-Saxons chose to recognize
or
representative to the French in Algiers,
Ismay,
it
To cushion
would be
London and
a guest of His
Majesty's government. But gestures
When
Britain's
Bevin, later postwar foreign secretary,
who was
labor minister in Churchill's
coalition
who had
War
Cabinet; Duff Cooper,
flown with de Gaulle from Al-
Major General Sir Hastings who was Churchill's personal
giers;
and others. But de Gaulle
To the able Free French ambas-
the able Alfred Duff Cooper, delivered
chief of
sador in London, Pierre Vienot, de
the invitation, he was taken aback by
had deliberately brought no
Gaulle sent an angry and coldly deter-
de Gaulle's
mined
be useless for him to go to London, the
nied only by his chief of
staff.
general told Duff Cooper, unless there
Emile Bethouart, and two
aides.
not.
instruction:
The form of recognition
of the
French Gov-
ernment by London and Washington now interests us very
passed
when
little.
The moment has
agreeable formulas might have
would be
initial flat refusal. It
said,
Churchill opened the discussions with
one of his sweeping and vivid mono-
was put him up
to
making
a
speech to give the French people the
logues on
how
far the Allies
impression that he was in agreement
tions about to unfold.
that de Gaulle
is
now
a fait accompli. As to the functions in the
liberated territory of France, there
question either. tration.
.
.
.
We
There
is
no
are the French adminis-
is
us or there
is
chaos.
If
the Western Allies bring about chaos in France,
it
will be their responsibility,
and we
was not
for the rest of the day,
him
left
and returned
another argument in the evening
rived in Algiers ly,
for
—by
which time Churchill's York had
to
Great Britain would have recognized it
Cooper argued with
ar-
and was waiting. Final-
the next morning, June
3,
de Gaulle
sent a written reply agreeing to travel
believe they will be the losers in the end.
the de Gaulle government, but
true. Duff
de Gaulle for about an hour,
was
London, and the party hastily made
He
said he
hoped
would broadcast
to the
French people when the invasion of France got under way, and de Gaulle said he
So
"would be very glad to do
far so
been ued
set,
good.
A luncheon
that."
table
had
and the conversation contin-
in a equitable
mood, with de Gaulle
offering praise that "after so deals so valiantly endured
many
or-
and thanks to
which she had saved Europe, [Great
Rabat
Britain] should today be the base for the
and refueling, then flew on
attack on the Continent." Then, as they
for the airport. for dinner
They stopped
had come,
and on the historic scope of the opera-
with the British and Americans, which
and exercise of French administration
General
they were trying to do,
All
our
is
political
He was accompa-
ministers with him.
tripartite talks including the
Americans.
he
would
staff;
recognition by the French people, and that
been useful. The essential point
in
held back purely by Winston Churchill's
through the night past Gibraltar, the
neared dessert, Churchill suggested that
loyalty to Franklin Roosevelt as the
coast of Spain, the Bay of Biscay, and
they should turn to political matters
France, landing at Northolt Airport on
and the mood suddenly changed.
leader of the free world.
the outskirts of
De Gaulle could not be ignored and left
London
Sunday, June
at
"Political matters?
about 6:00
Why?" was de
Contrary to nor-
Gaulle's cold response. Churchill replied
and on
mal wartime security arrangements,
that he had been in touch with Roo-
Churchill dispatched a personal
Churchill had also ordered the Royal
sevelt,
to rusticate in Algiers forever,
May 31
invitation to
him
to
the earliest possible
36
to take part
in talks to sort out political arrange-
have in France
maybe
London
secretary of state, to
told Treasury Sec-
He
bills.
know what kind will
A convoy
send Edward R. Stettinius, then under-
Henry Morgenthau: "How do you
pear on the retary
—
come
to
moment
London
"at
in deepest
A.M.
4.
Air Force to turn out an
and
a
band
honor guard
to play the "Marseillaise."
secrecy." Meanwhile, Roosevelt turned
But none of this put de Gaulle
down an urgent
happy mood.
appeal from Churchill to
in a
and he knew that although the
president did not wish to issue a formal invitation, de Gaulle in
would be welcome
Washington. De Gaulle replied
that he
was
in
no hurry
to visit
testily
Wash-
.
.
At Casablanca in January 1943, de Gaulle and a rival for leadership of the Free French, General Henri Giraud
(left),
meet
with Roosevelt and Churchill. Roosevelt's dislike of the willful de Gaulle had led to temporary American support for Giraud in
North Africa. But
ington and
it
where he was
it
became evident that only de Gaulle had Free French support, and Giraud lost out
was better he be right
at this juncture. Churchill
power
in the
over her European
prodigious and selective, wrote in his
ties
Memoirs
Memoirs de Gaulle quotes
that he told the British:
struggle.
ties. In his
Churchill:
impatiently insisted that he was "strongly
urging" de Gaulle to seek a meeting
with Roosevelt, and Eden joined in to add that
if
de Gaulle would seek
ing they could prepare Anglo-French
.-^
meet-
some
joint
political proposals that
he
could take with him to the president.
The Labor party had strongly
supported the Free French, and he said that "the Labor party
would resent
it" if
discussions did not begin to resolve the
Suddenly the
fat
was
in the fire,
Gaulle turned on Bevin and all
to Roosevelt? .
.
.
I
need to sub-
candidacy for the authority in France
Once
this
The French Government recognized,
is
it is still
exists.
essential
we organize the
for all the Allies that
rela-
the military
command.
...
and de
let
of the pent-up anger
loose
and
re-
We
But where
ourthe
is
American representative? Without him, you well know, we can conclude nothing.
.
as .
he
talks,
said:
Churchill, listening grimly to this blast,
went over
to the attack. Accord-
very well to talk like that.
than one occasion cussions.
have tried to
have made proposals as long ago
therefore does not
mean anything
that the British Labor party ed. ..
.
wanted told
I
initiate dis-
September but have received no
as last It
I
I
On more
It is
reply.
to say
would be offend-
me, and yet now suddenly
must go and
talk to the President.
am
1
.
.
scene, from a
in his
account of this
memory
that was both
rope and the open sea, we shall always choose the open
sea.
Each time
I
have to
choose between you and Roosevelt,
shall
I
always choose Roosevelt.
De Gaulle then added
own
a detail of his
recollection of the events that
was
not part of the dry British official record.
He says
first of all
that he
siding with Roosevelt "was destined
more
for his British colleagues
He
says that he noted
"shaking his head
than
Eden
in disbelief" at
Churchill's outburst, and that Bevin
Gaulle visited the President was a matter for
then came up to him as the luncheon
him
party broke up and "declared loudly
bluntly that,
if
.
.
.
must
tell
every effort had been ex-
hausted ... he, Mr. Churchill, would almost certainly side with the President,
and that
anyhow no quarrel would ever
arise be-
enough
for
everyone to hear: 'The
Prime Minister has told you case he
would
want you
tween Britain and the United States on ac-
on
count of France.
name
his
to
own
of the
in every
side with the President;
know
that he
initiative
War
and not
Cabinet.'
of Churchill's
words was a great deal more a great deal
more pointed about
Churchill's view of ests
would always
colorful,
"
in the
(De Gaulle
where lie,
in
British inter-
her American
though almost never would he use himself.) His account
is
I
was speaking
understood English perfectly well,
De Gaulle's version and
De Gaulle,
know:
to
between Eu-
to choose
Mr. Churchill said that whether or not de
clear that the President has never
to see
something you ought
myself."
ing to the British records:
the General himself. But he It is all
is
Each time we have
"sensed" that Churchill's blast about
sentment he had been harboring. According to the British record of the
There
understand your
I
haste to see the question settled. selves are ready to do so.
and
arrangements with France.
political
with
do you seem to think that
my
mit
tions between the French administration
At this point Bevin entered the discussion.
Why
alit
fully plausible.
Both Bevin and the Labor leader in the War Cabinet had
Clement Attlee been firm
in their
support for the Free
MHQ 37
a
French and against Churchill tying
De Gaulle was simply determined
himself so closely to Roosevelt and leav-
make the views of a French government known about any leaflet to be dropped
room
ing himself no
French policy
for
maneuver on
Nevertheless, Churchill ended the
dampened luncheon
party
"To General de Gaulle,
v^^ith
who
a toast:
never ac-
cepted defeat." De Gaulle responded: "To England, to Victory, to Europe"
—
was perfectly
cordial, lasting less
than an hour, and de Gaulle then headed back to London. a long
A
"See they don't
come 'ome
let
down when we
us
this time, Ernie."
Meanwhile,
in
London
that
Monday
morning, de Gaulle was blowing up a
his early arrival at
very different storm. By courier he dis-
had been arranged
suite
waving good-bye from the dock:
to him,
had already been
It
Sunday since
ion in Flanders; Bevin moved to tears when an embarking Tommy called out
for
patched a
letter to
Eisenhower's head-
Connaught Hotel near Grosvenor Square, where he often
be "unacceptable" wording in the inva-
with Churchill for a
stayed in London.
sion proclamation. Eisenhower was
drive over backcountry roads to Eisen-
After de Gaulle
did not go unnoticed. officers
then set
off
De Gaulle and
his
hower's secluded invasion headquarters.
Eisenhower and de Gaulle, of course,
him
at the
commanders gathered
his senior final
Eisenhower and
left,
for a
look at the weather charts with the
quarters protesting what he declared to
call-
ing for "prompt and willing obedience to
orders
I
shall issue"
and declaring, with-
out any mention at
all of
the Free
many
chief meteorologist of the Royal Air
French, that "as France
months
of the North African campaign,
Force at around nine o'clock on that
her oppressors, you yourselves will
with
of
long June Sunday evening.
choose your representatives and the gov-
knew each other all
well from the
military
its
and
ups
political
and downs. Moreover, whatever Roo-
Eisenhower was
sevelt's attitude,
a
strong supporter of de Gaulle for purely military considerations
if
no other. De
Gaulle had brought clear and firm leadership to the political
muddle
North
in
Africa of the Darlan affair. Eisenhower
also accepted with conviction
Roosevelt was refusing to accept in
France
itself
what
—
that
there was simply no one
on the horizon who could
command
the support and respect of de Gaulle.
Eisenhower and
his chief of staff.
Brigadier General Walter Bedell Smith,
pulled out
all
the stops to give de
Gaulle, Churchill,
tailed plans
map
and the others a de-
briefing on the D-Day
—which on that Sunday evening
had already been postponed
for twenty-
the inva-
If
sion were to be launched over the beaches
Tuesday morning,
at first light
the signal to
sail
had
to be given
Sun-
is
liberated
ernment under which you wish Innocuous as
this
one but de Gaulle,
to live."
might seem it
from
to any-
was nevertheless
day night. After hearing of squalls in
clearly tailored to Roosevelt's determina-
the area, with the threat of a storm
tion to avoid conferring any accolade of
still fi-
power on de Gaulle's government. Under
quite positive
the proclamation, de Gaulle wrote,
two or three days away, Eisenhower
am
nally said quietly, "I
that the order
must be given." The
commander, Admiral
naval
Ramsay,
Sir
Bertram
immediately to flash
left
coded message to the
fleet
a
commander,
Eisenhower "appeared trol of
to be taking con-
our country, even though he was
merely an Allied general entitled to
command
troops, but not in the least
American rear admiral Alan Kirk, who
qualified to intervene in our country's
was waiting
government." This was wildly unfair, but
France.
It
Channel, to
in the
was 9:45
Around 3:00 was roused
a.m.
sail for
de Gaulle insisted on making his point.
p.m.
General Eisenhower
in his trailer
by pounding
and gale-force gusts of wind. He
rains
got up and dressed and drove in the rain back to the headquarters
map
De Gaulle next turned
to a
much
more serious matter on the eve responded to his
memorandum about
Free French liaison officers for the in-
De
room
to look
ports.
There was
against any further postponement,
fleet.
But the prediction was that these
"which would prolong tensions and
were
local squalls that
compromise secrecy." At the end,
out. Finally Ike said, "Okay. Let's go,"
behind the early waves of the Allied
Eisenhower handed de Gaulle a copy
and went back
vasion.
a proclamation to the that he
of
French people
would be broadcasting and that
the Allies would be dropping in leaflets all
over the invasion area.
General Bethouart,
who was
present,
made it clear that document had been approved by says Eisenhower
American and
On
that
once more still
updated
at
time to
would soon blow
to his trailer.
Monday morning,
train parked
re-
recall the
on a country
in his
siding,
Win-
of
D-Day. Although the Allies had never
Gaulle says he advised Eisenhower
four hours because of bad weather.
vasion, he had gone ahead and selected
about 170
officers for the job,
and they
had been duly assigned to various corps
and divisional headquarters
to follow in-
De Gaulle had acted
in anticipa-
would be
a political
tion that there
agreement with the United States and
ston Churchill got up late and was
Great Britain on recognition or cooper-
joined by Ernest Bevin on a tour of the
ation with the Free French
D-Day staging
to Roosevelt there
area,
where troops were
—but thanks
was none. On that
the
continuously loading and setting out
Monday morning
the
across the choppy Channel and the air-
telegraphed from de Gaulle's headquar-
orders were suddenly
governments and
borne paratroopers were gearing up and
ters to the
obviously had already been printed. But
standing by for evening takeoff to Nor-
draw from their assignment and await
de Gaulle said after a hasty reading that
mandy.
further orders. They would not be tak-
British
It
men
was an emotional day
—Churchill with
for
he would be sending Eisenhower
ries of the
trenches in
memoWorld War I,
changes that he wished to see made.
when he commanded an
infantry battal-
he found parts of
38
er
Northolt.
which probably
final dig at Churchill,
MHQ
The meeting with Eisenhow-
in France.
at all.
to
it
"unacceptable" and
both
his
170 liaison officers to with-
ing part in the invasion.
At 5:00 P.M. the Foreign Office sent
one of
its
senior careerists, Charles
Peake, to confer with de Gaulle.
It
was a
duty that Peake had frequently carried
explain the actions of his chief.
Office to
nately he had de Gaulle's respect in
son
often difficult dealings. Peake's mission
from their
time was to inform de Gaulle that
officers
de Gaulle arguing over broadcast time
posts.
But he emphasized
his
these matters, and he requested that
excusable betrayal of loyalty
morning.
the ambassador see de Gaulle immedi-
lies at
was known that the troops
ately to get the order to the liaison offi-
Gaulle knew only one loyalty
BBC would
to Europe. first,
to
Peake told de Gaulle,
begin special broadcasts
The king
Norway would
of
followed by the queen of the
Netherlands, the grand duchess of Lux-
embourg, and the prime minister of Bel-
on the eve
cers revoked
of the greatest
invasion operation in history. Vienot left
hension as to the
some apprewhat might await him at
the Foreign Office in
Connaught
Around 11:30
p.m.
Vienot arrived at
de Gaulle's suite and began reporting on
proclamation. After that, de Gaulle was
his discussions with
French people.
to address the
Eden and the
protest of the British. Usually icily con-
To Peake's consternation, de
Gaulle's
trolled,
de Gaulle suddenly blew up, and
response to this order of battle was
Vienot went through what he later called
a harsh "Non." First he informed Peake
"the worse dressing-down in
of his objections to Eisenhower's "un-
life."
acceptable" proclamation and the
about Churchill, the British, the Ameri-
changes he was seeking
He
—
futile
told Peake that "T
though
would
The general
terly refused to
liaison officers,
if
I
spoke after him, and
I
would be assuming an unsuitable rank in the series of speeches."
broadcast, he told Peake, at a different
If
"it
he were to
can only be
hour outside the
series."
In bleak disbelief, Peake headed back to the Foreign Office to inform his su-
my whole
loose a diatribe
and their con-
temptuous treatment of France. He
hower
said
let
cans, "les Anglo-Saxons,"
appear to sanction what General Eisen-
change his orders
their farewells to the invasion forces,
and Churchill immediately
called a
War
Ambassador Vienot arrived back
at the
Foreign Office from his dressing-down by de Gaulle about 1:00 a.m.
—from one
ten through informing Eden that de Gaulle was refusing to change his orders
England
to keep his liaison officers in
when,
in the
ambassador's words, Chur-
chill "exploded,
roared and bellowed in
incoherent rage." De Gaulle was "an obstructionist saboteur"
Eden
adjectives as well.
and
lots of
finally
other
ended the
heated scene by telling Vienot to return
Connaught
to the
to report
ing to de Gaulle at once.
proaching 3:00
A.M.,
It
on
meet-
his
was now ap-
but fortunately for
Vienot, de Gaulle had regained his icy
He
com-
ment, and allowed the exhausted ambas-
agreement that had the
Allies recogniz-
ing the French government,
would not
its
soldiers
Meanwhile, Churchill had walked
Downing
Street from his resi-
at the Foreign Office.
listened, offered little
sador to go off for much-needed sleep.
But
was not yet
it
Churchill
participate.
dence to join Eden in his ornate
London from
to the
that to Eden. Without a political
across
to
to his
calm.
tell
new machina-
and Bevin returned
—
idea of France restored as a power.
and
time, Churchill
this
al-
But de
a crucial stage of the war.
Vienot to return to the Foreign Office
same
About
ut-
and he instructed poor
periors of de Gaulle's tions.
own
in-
among
storm into another. He had barely got-
Hotel.
gium; then Eisenhower would read his
this was.
was con-
position, as far as Churchill
for de Gaulle to broad-
safely ashore,
speak
told Vienot in se-
cerned this was a monstrous and
cast to France in the
the
Eden
time.
vere terms of Churchill's anger over
arrangements
it
own
What-
make
borne drops even earlier
offi-
ever the logic or reason of de Gaulle's
broadcast to France on D-Day, simply at
Once
French
to allow 170
cers to assist the Allies in battle.
air-
were
and refusing
that de Gaulle certainly expected to
first
—and
was no political
and military cooperation. Yet here was
— the
on Tuesday morning
that there
not his fault
liai-
the D-Day landings would begin at light
now
agreement with the French on
had indeed been withdrawn
confirm that the French
out over the past three years, and fortu-
this
Around
10:00 P.M. Vienot arrived at the Foreign
office
By now the prime
minister was well fortified for the long
number
over.
left
Eden's
angrily back across
strode
office,
Downing
Street to
his residence,
and summoned one
key assistants,
Desmond Morton,
of his his
li-
aison officer with the intelligence services.
Morton had
also handled
much
of
of
Churchill's direct dealings with the
—understandably and not un-
Free French, bypassing the Foreign Of-
invasion night with a
Cabinet meeting at Downing Street to
whiskies
review the day's happenings and get an
reasonably. Indeed, sympathy at this
update on news from Eisenhower's
mactic hour must be with the great
headquarters. Eden arrived with the
Churchill. For nearly five years his in-
instructed
Foreign Office report on de Gaulle. He
exhaustible energies had fired the cru-
he was to contact Eisenhower's chief of
was objecting
cible of war. At that
to the
Eisenhower procla-
mation. He was refusing to broadcast in the time allotted to
And, above
all,
him by
the BBC.
he had recalled
all
the
Free French liaison officers from their
cli-
moment, about
fice, for
nearly four years.
His rage far from cooling, Churchill
staff
"and
Morton
tell
in brutal
him
terms that
to put General de
him back
25,000 British and American airborne
Gaulle on a plane and send
troops were beginning to take off and
Algiers
form up over England
prime minister then dictated
Normandy.
for the flight to
In the English Channel,
—
in
chains
if
to
necessary." The a terse
personal letter to de Gaulle ordering
which Mor-
appointments to the various Allied mili-
75,215 British and Canadian troops and
him out
tary headquarters.
another 57,000 Americans were plow-
ton was to hand-deliver to de Gaulle at
of
England
at once,
Connaught Hotel immediately.
Churchill hit the ceiling. Eden re-
ing through choppy waters for D-Day
the
turned to the Foreign Office to sum-
landings. Churchill had brought de
was by now about 4:00
mon
Gaulle to London in 1940, and
June 6
de Gaulle's ambassador, Vienot, to
it
was
—the dawn
a.m.
It
Tuesday,
of D-Day.
MHQ 39
Morton, an experienced career diplo-
able remarks against his allies for failing
mat, was appalled at what Churchill was
to recognize the Provisional
ordering, and instead he took the Chur-
ment
Govern-
of France? In the event he rose to
sica.
Another important item aboard
the French destroyer that carried de Gaulle back to France was a trunk
full
French francs
the occasion, as he was always capable of
of 25 million real Free
work. Whatever
doing. But he worded his broadcast
to replace Roosevelt's invasion curren-
where Eden was
at
still
de Gaulle's behavior,
it
would have been
a political catastrophe to
England and back
him out
fly
of
to Algiers "in chains
if
necessary" as the invasion of France began. So, at around 4:30
on the phone
a.m.,
Eden got
one of the
to Churchill in
supersede Eisenhower's
skillfully to
proclamation and Roosevelt's stubborn
On D-Day,
policy of nonrecognition.
By what means the foreign secretary
mandy headquarters of General Bernard Montgomery. Eisenhower was still in
men
at last
French-
p.m..
heard the voice of de Gaulle:
England,
The supreme
begun.
battle has
calm down the prime minis-
sons of France, whoever they
hour nobody knows. But
ever they
Morton
to
forget about the instructions, and to-
gether the two of
them then burned
the
Churchill letter to de Gaulle.
"We've had a crazy night," Eden re-
few hours later
when he met with
Robert Bruce Lockhart,
duty
who
Sir
may
be, their
to fight the
is
their disposal.
.
.
may
.
it
gomery's snappy briefings, de Gaulle
means
at
The orders given by the
has appointed must be implicitly
obeyed.
.
.
.
From behind
our blood and is
tears, the
the dark cloud of
sun of our grandeur
appearing once more.
brought with
who
me Commandant
storm subsided, and the D-Day
"I
have
Coulet,
concerned with administra-
will be
tion in Bayeux." Monty, with other
He
things on his mind, merely nodded.
couldn't have cared less about the sig-
what de Gaulle was about was
to do. Politics
There was no mention of France
at the
took a polite leave to head for Bayeux,
with an almost casual remark:
nificance of
directed
BBC. The
propaganda operations
main headquarters.
wher-
be.
every
at the
Nor-
After listening to one of Mont-
simple and sacred
enemy by
in a waiting jeep to the
For the
French government and by the French leaders
marked with laconic understatement a
for the
prefecture in Bayeux, while de Gaulle
was driven
to
told
they landed, Coulet set off at
once with the trunk of money
newscast to Europe at 6:00
ter at that
when Eden hung up he
When
cy.
during the BBC's regular prime-time
most bizarre secret episodes of the war.
Ike's business.
whatever Roosevelt's
But
political directive,
obeying General Eisenhower. Recog-
de Gaulle was about to appoint the
landings put everyone in a jubilant
nized or not by President Roosevelt,
representative of his Provisional Gov-
mood; but
was the authority
political
it
was not over with de
ment
Gaulle yet.
As the battle raged
in
Normandy, the
of the
French govern-
In fact, de Gaulle had a secret ally in
—who performed
to try to reason with de Gaulle over the
first
French
twentieth-century Admiral Nelson,
I
pointed out to
him
that in his
own
interest
he ought to agree to the officers going, as otherwise
would be
it
had refused to help us
would not accept the
said of
him
that he
in the battle itself.
logic of this
argument,
but eventually said that to please
would agree cers,
if
not
to send at least
some
He
me
of the
he
offi-
Gaulle's action
had been insupport-
able in light of the great action
without any consul-
like a
who
commander.
Allied
An hour
or so later at the prefecture
in Bayeux, in de Gaulle's presence, the
portrait of Marshal Retain
was pulled
who
down, a harmless
to ignore signals raised by his Royal
was the Vichy
Navy commander at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. Absorbed in the
ously retired, and Coulet was installed to
overriding task of running the battle,
power repeated by the
Eisenhower simply paid no attention
prefecture and town hall to the next
about supervising
He could
get
civil affairs in
France.
not, of course, confer recogni-
let
de Gaulle
was unceremoni-
prefect
It
was a takeover of
D-Day,
Gaullists
across France that glorious
from one
summer
of
1944, without consultation and without interference from Eisenhower.
The cy
affair of
the occupation curren-
''faux billets," or
Gaulle called them
on with the job unimpeded. 14, eight days after
"soft collaborator"
take firm charge.
on de Gaulle's Provisional Govern-
On June
now
at
to Roosevelt's restrictive instructions
all
ment, but he could and did
De
in France,
put a telescope to his blind eye in order
tion
all.
supreme
in those
weeks of the invasion
crucial
ernment
first
tation with or permission by the
Eisenhower
liaison officers. In his diaries.
it
that de Gaulle proclaimed.
Foreign Office sent Alfred Duff Cooper
Duff Cooper recorded:
phony
bills,
— played
something of a French
out
de in
farce. Printed to
taking place, but typically he backed off
General de Gaulle embarked for Nor-
Roosevelt's design, they bore nothing
without giving up.
mandy
but a French flag, the words La France, and the denomination. Canny Normandy farmers, sensing these might
There remained the question of his
D-Day morning the leaders been heard
to the
BBC
the
He stepped
a few miles northeast of the ancient
not
town
tax offices to use the invasion currency
Around noon he went
to record a broadcast.
The
him for a text in advance. Would he aim some unacceptBritish did not dare ask
in four years.
soil for
ashore at the village of Courseulles,
—but where was the great
leader of France?
time
on French
now on
Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium had all
first
to set foot
of Norway,
broadcast to France. Already by
40
—
across to the Foreign Office,
chill letter
managed
—
of Bayeux.
Accompanying French career Coulet,
who
civil
until
de Gaulle was a servant, Francois
two weeks before had
been serving as the Free French prefect in
charge of the liberated island of Cor-
last long,
began turning up
to pay their taxes in advance.
at local
Tax au-
and stores began
call-
ing at Coulet's prefecture to ask
who
thorities, banks,
was backing meeting of
this
currency anyway. A
civil-affairs authorities at
Eisenhower's headquarters was ar-
gium, Luxembourg, Holland, and Yu-
ambassador
ranged with de Gaulle's representatives,
goslavia had
he remarked that he hoped de Gaulle
week
and
after a
lies
agreed to exchange their faux
of negotiation the Al-
Provisional
all
recognized de Gaulle's
Government
of France.
But
was glad
it
to the
was
all
French government,
finished.
De Gaulle
bil-
President Roosevelt would not budge,
shrugged and grunted, "Bah
lets for
Free French currency and pay
and Churchill would not break with him.
never be finished."
for the
exchange
in dollars at par.
De
In June, July,
and August, the de
France was America's
War
—
it
will
the
first ally in
facto recognition of the de Gaulle gov-
Gaulle political tidal wave swept across
ernment was under way.
France ahead of Eisenhower's liberat-
Roosevelt succeeded in making America
— engulfing Paris on August
the last ally to recognize General de
Moreover, in both London and Wash-
was
24-26
of an uproar over the
maxes
ington, political and public opinion in
something
mishmash of
French
the Allies were clearly affairs in the
tion. Churchill
ing armies
hour
was having a
making
of libera-
particularly
in
one of the great emotional
cli-
of the war. Still Roosevelt held
It
was not
until
October 23, four and
that President Roosevelt finally relented to accord full diplomatic recognition of
governments
in
London
of occupied
Norway, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bel-
a half
General de Gaulle's long-established Provisional
Government
of France.
general's terse and sardonic
De
Gaulle's triumphant
march
through liberated Paris on August 26, 1944, underscored his determination to be treated as
an equal by the Allies.
was
government
in
World
a sorry chapter in the
long love-hate relationship between the
By mid-June the provisional
British.
Commons. The
It
United States of America and France,
peans rapidly broke ranks with the
of
II.
ing Churchill and Stalin in line as well.
other Euro-
House
to the
Gaulle's French
War
out on recognition, insisting on keep-
months after D-Day and three months after the liberation of Paris,
rough time explaining things
of Independence, but President
was, "The French government fied to
be called by
When
its
The
comment is
satis-
name."
Alfred Duff Cooper
was
finally
able to present his credentials as British
and the carries
political its
scars.
turmoil of D-Day
Nor
still
are the British
al-
lowed to forget either.
Don Cook was a war correspondent in London in 1945, and he covered Europe for the
New
York Herald Tribune and
g
| s
then the Los Angeles Times until 1988.
<
He is the author of Charles de Gaulle: A Biography (G.P. Putnam, 1984) and
s
Forging the Alliance,
NATO 1945-1950
(Arbor HouseAVilliam Morrow, 1989).
1
| "
—
Peppermint and alsos J ^ ^^^^r Soldiers assigned to these two secret units were potentially the most important among the invasion forces: Only they could detect the Nazis' nuclear capability, Jt I
^H
^^
byFepencM.Szasz
5,
1944,
to the Fatherland, including Nobel Lau-
D. Eisenhower,
com-
reate physicist
the evening of June
Dwight
On
Werner Heisenberg, who
remained because "Germany needs me,"
man whose
to perfect an X-ray bulb.
Force (SHAEF), walked quietly
discoverer of the process of fission. Con-
celebre of radiation-induced illness,
tinental refugees voiced the opinion that
however, emerged with the
the paratroopers standing in the
world could make the
"if
Common
airfield.
atomic bomb, Heisenberg could."
dier?" he
would say
"How
are you, sol-
to one, flashing his
anybody
in the
I,
Rumor played on these fears. British man Vernon Scannell recalled
the U.S.
and watch
crowds. Although considered vital at
Normandy, the soldiers worried aloud that "the Germans had a secret weapon that would destroy the entire invasion force." Behind the lines,
few years,
the time, these units have faded almost
British intelligence seriously debated
completely from public memory. But in
whether the Nazis would
1944, Peppermint and Alsos represent-
type of "radio-active powder" in their
ed the Allies' greatest fears about the
V-1 or V-2 rockets.
sol-
would ask another.
Two hardly noticed
units, code-
named "Peppermint" and "Alsos," waited in the wings of the D-minus-one
for
utilize
some
Germans had somehow created
nuclear "poison" or an atomic
to paint
radium
radium paint
as they worked.
mouth and jaw
ed postwar suit against the
which bility
— brought the
Ever since Wilhelm Rontgen discov-
ered the
X
ray in 1895 and
Madame
In
sium, strontium, iodine, or some other radioactive substance
—that the Nazis
could drop over the beaches and invad-
ing armies, creating a deadly radioactive barrier.
This fear was prominent in itary
many
mil-
minds. During the interwar years,
lethality of radio-
Hahn and
mann unknowingly
of ce-
company
December 1938, German
chemists Otto
atom
— an isotope
severe
steadfastly denied any responsi-
the public had been both charmed and
of nuclear poison
Within a
cancers. Their celebrat-
Marie Curie discovered radium in 1898,
likely be in the
young
on clock
many developed
form
would most
dials
War New
faces. To make a finer point on their brushes, the women often licked them, ingesting small amounts of
weapon. The D-Day planners concluded it
of
activity to the public's attention.
forthcoming invasion of the Continent: that the
tale of the
Jersey had hired workers, usually
that just before his battalion departed
dier?" he
"Where are you from,
The cause
Radium Corporation
women,
grin.
chief assignment had been
radium-dial painters. During World
enlisted
famous
mystified by the
power
of radioactivity.
ish physicist Niels
tential
seemed
During the
po-
news
limitless. first
years of the century,
neu-
understood the implications. Dan-
tists
its
uranium
trons in the process. But other scien-
not see,
smell, or taste, yet
the
in two, releasing additional
Here was a substance that one could feel,
split
physical
Fritz Strass-
Bohr conveyed the
of the splitting of
uranium
to a
national gathering of physicists at
Wash-
various entrepreneurs and hucksters
George Washington University
touted radium as a medical cure-all.
ington, D.C., in January 1939. As soon
They sold radium hearing
as
aids, hair
in
he heard the news, another refugee
everyone acknowledged that German
tonic, face cream,
science, especially nuclear physics,
firm even marketed a radium-laced bev-
Fermi, began to speculate on the size of
ranked as the best
erage, Radithor, that
remained on the
the crater that a kilogram of a urani-
in the world. Al-
though attacks on "Jewish physics" dur-
and toothpaste: one
Simultaneously, however, the nation
ous scientists to Britain or the United
also confronted the dark side of this
States, a significant
number
stayed loyal
strange, invisible power.
Madame
from fascism,
Italian physicist
um-based explosive might
market well into the mid-1930s.
numer-
ing the early 1930s had driven
42
Edison's top laboratory assistant, the
and physical chemist Otto Hahn, co-
of the
marshaling area of England's Greenham
that
Thomas
died of cancer and so, too, did
Supreme
among
MHQ
X
Jw
Headquarters Allied Expeditionary
manding general
a
^^
I
Curie
On September weeks
after the
Enrico
create.
19, 1939, only
German armies had
two in-
vaded Poland, Chancellor Adolf Hitler
drove to Danzig to deliver a major radio
tee.
Consequently, Allied intelligence
Germans might drop an atomic bomb,
address in which he threatened France
examined every scrap of data they could
but this he steadfastly refused to do.
and England with "a weapon against
find
uranium
(Ironically, only a year later, the Ger-
which there
in-
program. The results were not encour-
what
aging. In June 1942, a Swedish scientist
mans were using Geiger counters to test bomb craters in Berlin for evidence
is
no defense." British
telligence officers puzzled over
German
the
chancellor meant by this
phrase, and they suggested three possibilities: Hitler
might have been
bluff-
He might have been pointing
ing.
to
the power of the Luftwaffe (most likely).
Or he might
riety of
actually have
weapon. In the
fall
so
all,
many
va-
of 1939, nothing
could be disregarded. after
some
chemical or nuclear terror
when pulp
was
It
a time,
writers ground out
stories involving
an invisible
"death ray" that the theme became
something of a
on the
informed
a
state of the Nazi
London colleague
that
Heisenberg had begun overseeing nuclear-fission work at a number of laboratories in Germany and that "remust not be excluded." Simulta-
sults
neously, Hungarian emigre Leo Szilard, a physicist,
warned American
officials
that he had heard from a Swiss contact
Germans had placed
that the
machine"
in operation,
a
"power
of an
American atomic bomb.)
Within a few months, however, American officials began to relax. While sci-
German use
entists believed that
of
atomic weapons against the United States was
still
agreed that
it
plausible, they also
was
unlikely. All civilian
defense measures against logical warfare
German
radio-
were soon discontinued.
The proposed invasion of the Conti-
one from which
they could easily derive fission products
nent brought the matter back to
for military use.
Since intelligence had been unable to
life.
cliche.
American military planners soon be-
came
intrigued with the con-
Only two weeks after the German armies had invaded Poland^ Adolf Hitler threatened France and England with "a weapon " against which there is no defense,
cept of a radioactive "poison,"
and the idea received considerable discussion during the initial
stages of the Manhat-
tan Project (the code for America's
name
atomic-bomb prcgram).
Producing an atomic bomb would de-
mand enormous
industrial effort
and
That
fall,
expense, but an atomic "poison" might
tists
be both easier and cheaper to manufac-
program
ture. In 1941, a scientific advisory
Academy
com-
Manhattan Project scien-
inaugurated a secret civil-defense to
guard against a possible
German atomic
The army
attack.
or-
penetrate the
German
scientific
com-
munity, the Allies had virtually no knowledge of the extent of the German
uranium
project. Refugee
rumors
in-
of Sci-
dered the metallurgical laboratory of
variably placed the Nazis far ahead in
ences recommended that the United
the University of Chicago to develop so-
the race for atomic weapons. Moreover,
States consider using radioactive-
phisticated radiation-detection instru-
fission products as a potential military
ments. By the
weapon. Manhattan Project scientists
army had
seriously discussed the possibility of
devices at Manhattan Project district of-
dropping fission materials from a plane
fices in
mittee to the National
to
contaminate the ground below. In
May 1943, Fermi and
physicist
J.
summer
of 1943, the
discreetly placed the detection
Boston, Chicago,
New
York, San
Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
A number
of
American
recent aerial photographs had revealed
number
the location of a
missile-launching
sites.
of probable
Although the
V-1 and V-2 missiles were not launched until after D-Day, the Allies realized their potential
from the outset. These
scientists ar-
missiles could carry conventional weapons, radiological weapons, or even
Robert Oppenheimer, the director of
gued that since the Germans were
the secret wartime laboratory at Los
about two years ahead of the Allies in
crude atomic bombs. The Americans
Alamos, discussed the possibility of
uranium research, they had probably
warned the
Oppenheimer
dioactive food poisoning.
demurred from Fermi's tions,
ra-
sugges-
initial
however, arguing that the
scheme would not be
practical unless
way
the scientists could discover a
"poison food sufficient to
kill
to
a half a
million men." The American radiation-
ready stockpiled large quantities of radioactive isotopes,
be difficult for
bombers
would not
1943,
some Chicago
late
scientists so feared
ilies
into the Illinois countryside.
A
of people urged General Leslie
R. Groves, overall
head of the Manhat-
tan Project, to warn the nation that the
British that
if
the
Germans
ever dropped radioactive-fission products
on London, the
city
would have
to
be evacuated.
shower major American
this possibility that they sent their fam-
number
But had the Germans reached the
it
to use long-range
with radioactive poisons. In
poison plan, however, never moved be-
same conclusion? There was no guaran-
to
and that
them
cities
yond the discussion
stage.
al-
Navy captain W.S. ("Deke") Parsons wrote General Groves from Los Alamos to
remind him of the dangers of
tion poison that
rocket-propelled, aircraft.
Rotblat,
mos
radia-
might be dropped from
unmanned German
Polish-born scientist Joseph
who was
stationed at Los Ala-
as part of the British Mission,
had
MHQ 43
—
also analyzed the matter in detail. Rot-
blackens. The cover
argued that a Nazi uranium
the film proved even
were quietly shelved. After the close of the war, both the detection equipment
ferred only to "rumors" about recent
and documents were collected and
which could then
blackening of film and the desire to
placed in the Manhattan Project
pile
down
It
the source of these rumors.
Not
until
files.
1952 did A.V. Peterson, then a
be easily transported in lead casings to
track
the various rocket-launching sites.
The vague tone
From
there they could be combined
that the Peppermint soldiers were
of
with ordinary explosives and detonated
never informed of the true nature of
security section of the proposed thirty-
over beaches or advancing troops.
their mission.
"It is
unnecessary to picture the destructive possibilities of
such an arrangement,"
memos
suggests
his film turn black or
encountered any strange "diseases," he
who would
was to
Groves sent a memorandum to George C. Marshall, the U.S. chief of staff, urging him to inform Eisenhower (who knew nothing of the Manhattan
immediately get word back to Groves in
from
notify his superiors,
staff
about the
possibility.
The
Allied re-
Cavendish Labora-
Cambridge University agreed
diers
— their exact number and unknown —formed
ties are
sol-
identi-
a potentially
vital part of
the D-Day preparations. The
Allies decided that
both American and
laced the beaches
rather than immediate.
from the
Allied
on
radia-
comman-
ders participating in the actual assault.
On
the
morning
of June 6, the Pep-
food
— could
have halted the Allied
Germans would have had
spew forth these isotopes
produce any immediate would hardly have been if
with 1,500 film packets, 11 survey me-
The consequences
ters, a
Geiger counter, a calibrating
number
effect.
This
possible.
Even
the beaches had been "poisoned," the
war would have ended
in
at intensi-
about 100 roentgens per hour to
ties of
Normandy
permint soldiers landed
unlikely
spread on land, in the water, or in
to
the troops, Eisenhower decided
It is
that a barrage of radioactive isotopes
among
tion poisoning
Peppermint
Germans had
armies. The
name
of
the
top secret. Fearing a potential panic
to withhold this information
of Peppermint.
to
remained
tion. Everything, of course,
sponse to this threat took on the code
The small crew
If
quences would have been long-term
help identify the specific type of radia-
Peterson briefed Eisenhower and his
not widely known. The Peppermint
soldiers faded quietly into obscurity.
sonnel to Normandy. In addition, Brit-
patched Major A.V. Peterson to England April 8, 1944,
still
with dangerous radiation, the conse-
tory at
On
The documents were
not declassified until 1976. They are
per-
ments and highly trained technical
agreed, and Marshall immediately dis-
assignment.
and
for the intelligence
District History.
plans to dispatch both additional instru-
ish scientists at the
this
Peppermint
the States. Groves had laid contingency
radiation poisoning. The Pentagon
on
lieutenant colonel, write up the history
five-volume manuscript Manhattan
anyone saw
If
of the
Parsons warned.
Project) of the potential danger
as
did.
it
for the soldiers,
however, would have emerged years In 1944, as today, there existed no
British forces should approach the radi-
source, and a
ation-poison problem on an indepen-
The
dent basis, with coordination,
neces-
ready to be shipped to the European
poisoning. Allied
SHAEF. The chemical-warfare
theater with top air priority, consisted
have had to
had charge of the central-
of 1,500 additional packets of film,
er
and he was instructed
about 225 survey meters, and twenty-
absurd order under the circumstances.
sary, by
service officer
ized equipment, to
work
if
closely with the chief surgeon,
Major General Paul
R.
Hawley. Hawley
five
of spare parts.
stateside instruments,
which were
activities of
real defense against
and change clothes frequently
Peppermint units
or taste radiation
during the invasion must remain some-
severe doses
D-Day medical personnel
what speculative. Those carrying the
know
symptoms they might encounter among the invading
film packets, presumably the majority,
sults
surely carried out other assignments as
as statistics
all
to a set of physical
troops.
ease of
The report warned
unknown
of a "mild dis-
etiology" that mani-
fested the following
symptoms:
fatigue,
well.
The few with radiation meters or
Geiger counters must have watched dials
and listened
for telltale clicks.
nausea, leukopenia (an abnormally low
When
white-cell count), and erythema (red-
London on June 12, scientists tested the bomb fragments with Geiger coun-
ness of the skin). Any medic soldiers with this "disease" tact the chief
The men
who met
was
to con-
surgeon immediately.
of
Peppermint also carried
numerous packets
of
unexposed film
when they landed, because ordinary film, when exposed to radiation, fogs or
the first V-1 rocket landed in
ters to see
if
they contained any traces
member
of
Peppermint
found any signs of radiation poisoning, either
on the beaches or along the
sion routes,
all
inva-
contingency responses
if
— except
— how was
in the
—an
a soldier to re-
later
—a vast increase of cancer
among
rates
feel,
most
he had been exposed? The
would have shown up much
those
who had
taken part
in the invasion.
Moreover, these can-
would have
differed according to
cers
both exposure levels and the type of
iso-
tope used. Even worse, the illnesses
would have emerged
dom
in
an entirely ran-
pattern, for low-level exposures be-
come
of radioactivity.
Since no
massive radiation
commanders would instruct their men to show-
Moreover, since no one could see,
Geiger counters.
The
later.
issued a deliberately vague cover order that alerted
44
regarding
could be "milked" every three days for radioactive materials,
MHQ
memo
more vague.
re-
blat
statistically
meaningful only on a
large numerical basis.
Two men,
fight-
ing side by side, would almost surely
have developed very different problems.
The negative evidence
that
Peppermint
discovered in June 1944 removed the
gen20)
fear of this sort of slow death.
was
vital to
the
German nuclear
While the Peppermint soldiers worried
about the immediate consequences
of radiation poisoning at
Normandy, the
Alsos team dealt with the long-term,
is
not
might produce
reactor,
explosives.
uranium atoms
German
was the only
however, feared that the Ger-
it
which
Heavy water
pile to
"mod-
erate" the neutrons as they split the
effect.
officials,
an explosive, but
surrounded the uranium
overall impact of the
German nuclear The term Alsos (Greek for "grove") provided a somewhat coy cover name for their operation. Some security
itself
the successful operation of
The
to release energy.
scientists believed that effective
D2O
moderator
sault followed a
month
disastrous consequences.
was
lost at sea
with
A
full-scale as-
but with
later,
The
glider
first
aboard, while the
all
second, with thirty-four men, crashed
The Ger-
into a snow-covered mountain.
mans captured
the survivors and
promptly executed them as
spies.
SOE
In February 1943,
for
directed a
second attack on Vermork, this time
this purpose.
monitored Ger-
using volunteers from the Norwegian
heavy-water production carefully.
Army. Air-dropped onto the Hardanger
Meanwhile, the
man
ding Hardanger Plateau.
Allies
mans knew about General Groves and
Agents in Scandinavia kept them
in-
worried that "Alsos" came too close to
formed.
German
oc-
From
the initial
Plateau, the six volunteers hid in the
mountain area
lonely
for several weeks.
cupation of Norway in 1940 to 1942,
Then, on the night of February 28, at
Thomas
heavy-water production at Norsk Hydro
precisely 1:15 a.m., they stormed the
Powers, and Mark Walker have shown,
increased from 3,000 pounds a year to
Norsk Hydro plant, destroying the
game away.
giving the
As historians David Irving,
this
was a tangled
tale.
The old adage
"The most important aspect of history
what
involves not
is
actually
true but what people think
Fearing a potential panic among the troops f Eisenhower decided to withhold information on radiation poisoning from
is
true" was never better illus-
trated than by the
German
and American perceptions of
the Allied commanders.
each other's nuclear programs. Each nation viewed
its
opposite
entists' research.
own sciSince the German
program remained
largely theoretical
as
moving
in
tandem with
its
and academic, German scientists
as-
10,000 pounds a year. In February 1942, the
Allies
were marching
sault
toward the cre-
Each
side
was
at least as well.
tute for
contemporary
realities,
were eminently
lied fears
and
Al-
justifiable
under the circumstances. From 1942 on, the Allies believed the
Germans
were close
an atomic
to the creation of
on the
as-
This was easier said than done. The
Rjukan
which the plant was
Valley, in
was so steep that the sunlight
scat-
ally all
verely
reached safety. The assault se-
hampered the schedule
Germans
several
months
of the
took the
it
to restore
heavy-water production. In November 1943, a final
bombing
raid
on the
valley
British Liberators completely
cable car to the top of the
mountain
to
receive their daily allowance of sunshine. As
one historian phrased
raid cost the lives of twenty-two Nor-
wegian
it.
had searched
castle,
war: the assault on the Norsk Hydro
better than the shelf of rock
Hydrogen
Norsk Hydro plant stands.
a medieval king
for
all
of Nor-
an impregnable place to build a
he could not have found anything
on which the
ended the
Norsk heavy-water production, but the
Now way
civilians.
was
it
scientists
formed
team
to the Alsos
left
discover exactly
how
far the
team
to
German
had progressed. Originally
in 1943, Alsos
began as a small
of scientific investigators during
the Italian campaign. Alsos soldiers
helped capture and interrogate Italian
a deep valley in Vermork, Norway.
chemical and industrial
They
life.
tered in several directions and eventu-
winter months. Workers were hauled by
successful sabotage effort of the entire
of
and supplies with-
by 460 American Flying Fortresses and
staged perhaps the most dramatic and
number
facilities
out the loss of a single
never reached the bottom during the
If
The Norse Hydro plant produced a
heavy-water
Nazi uranium program, for
plant.
weapon. Because they so believed, they
Electrolysis Plant, located in
both
should undertake some type of
situated,
in total error.
Yet hindsight remains a poor substi-
this,
and Americans agreed that the
British
ation of an atomic weapon, believed the
Germans were doing
yet another
production increase. With
sumed the Americans were on roughly the same level. In turn, the Allies, who steadily
Germans ordered
British Special Operations Executive
commandos (SOE) drew
this assign-
scientists
about the progress of the Ger-
man uranium program. But
the results
None
items, but from the Allied point of view,
ment. They trained their operatives
the most important was their manufac-
the rugged mountains of northern Scot-
of the initial Alsos
ture of "heavy water." Heavy water
land and, in mid-October 1942, dropped
and they simply didn't know the proper
(deuterium20, rather than hydro-
an advanced guard on the bleak, forbid-
questions to ask the captured Italians.
in
of this foray proved disappointing.
men were
scientists,
MHQ 45
and his personal acquaintance with
town
constituted and refined. Their orders
major German
ror,
now were expanded
to include investi-
he spoke several European languages,
ruins and learned that his parents had
gations into ten fields of
German reamong which were aeronauti-
including fluent German.
He had never
both been deported to a concentration
search,
been involved with the Manhattan Proj-
As D-Day approached, Alsos was
re-
proximity-fuse, and chemi-
cal, missile,
cal research, as well as bacteriological
warfare.
The most important segment
of Alsos, however,
remained the
to investigate "the
uranium problem."
effort
ect,
from the
rest of scientific intelli-
if
camp and
cap-
to his hor-
home
in
later executed.
German
As the captured
vital for this as-
Germans had
the
The Hague, where,
began to adjust
to
life
at
scientists
Farm
Hall dur-
tured and tortured Goudsmit, he would
ing the winter of 1945, one jested with
have been unable to reveal any Allied
another about where the microphones
had been
atomic secrets. Alsos operated in self-contained units of both military
and
civilian personnel.
installed.
"Microphones
in-
stalled?" replied Heisenberg. "No, they're not as
cunning
as all that.
I
Their plan was to race to the major Ger-
don't think they
under the
man man
university towns, capture the Ger-
methods. The English have always been
nuclear physicists (who were
a bit old-fashioned."
strictest security. T.
all
know
the real Gestapo
But the British had, indeed,
Pash, a Californian born of Russian par-
well known), collect their scientific doc-
ents, as military chief of the Alsos mis-
uments, confiscate
Dutch-born Jewish physicist Samuel Goudsmit, hastily borrowed from the MIT Radiation Laboratory, became his chief scientist. Both were
and (perhaps) destroy any nuclear bomb-
ly
making
tions for several months.
ideally suited to their tasks.
give
sion.
Pash possessed a natural arrogance
meshed
that
perfectly with his assign-
ment. Risking capture, he invariably sisted
on traveling
in-
at the front of the
On August
all
stocks of uranium,
Pash carried a per-
capabilities.
sonal letter from Secretary of L.
Stimson urging
him
all
War Henry
military officials to
"every facility and assistance."
Goudsmit arrived
London on D-
in
Day and worked with
his British
terparts for several weeks. Then,
gust
9,
1944, he and other
coun-
on Au-
men from
installed
microphones, and they listened careful-
German
to the
scientists' conversa-
What they
heard confirmed Goudsmit's picions.
initial sus-
The German conversations
re-
vealed nothing about either an atomic
bomb ing.
or a
scheme
of radiation poison-
The ultimate meaning
of these
conversations (which were not declassi-
February 1992)
fied until
being
is still
25,
Alsos crossed the Channel to France.
1944, Pash arrived in Paris, riding in an
They then hurried across France into
open
first five
Germany, often leading the main body
had
he ac-
of the invading armies. Initially they
arrogance. The scientists seemed to as-
went
sume them
advancing Allied troops.
jeep, directly
behind the
French tanks to enter the complished this
after
four times by sniper
city;
being forced back
With consider-
fire.
able aplomb, he had telephoned a
French
him rive
scientist the day before to alert
that the Americans
would soon
ar-
with a barrage of questions. His au-
tobiography reads like an adventure tale. Later,
team
Pash personally led the Alsos
into the three major
German nu-
clear installations in southern Bavaria.
On another
occasion, Pash and a small
group were crossing a mountain road Bavaria at dusk
when
a
German
in
officer
der,
to Strasbourg
on the French bor-
where Goudsmit pored over manu-
scripts of captured Nazi physicists.
The
documents Goudsmit uncovered convinced him that the
was
far
behind the
German
Allies',
research
making him
disputed by historians.
Capture and imprisonment, however,
impact on German
little
scientific
that the Allies had sequestered at
Farm
Hall primarily to learn
from their uranium experiments. They suggested
among themselves
though the war had been
that even lost,
they
might "win the peace" through their
re-
"virtually certain" that the Nazis did not
search on nuclear-power plants. Only
have the bomb.
the
Still,
he admitted that
he could never be completely certain.
Wherever the Alsos team went, they
rounded up scientists,
a
number
of key
German
men whom Goudsmit
ciously termed his
"enemy
announcement
of
Hiroshima and
Nagasaki disabused them of this idea. In the postwar years, Heisenberg
several other
German
scientists
and
main-
gra-
tained that they had never intended to
colleagues."
manufacture an atomic bomb. Instead,
offer to surrender.
Afterward, the Allies shipped ten of
they said, they had chosen to work on a
Realizing that his band was greatly out-
the scientists to England, including
"uranium machine,"
numbered, Pash tentatively accepted
both the respected Otto Hahn and
source that could be used only for
Germans
approached with an
the surrender but told the that he
all
the arrangements.
night arrived, he and his to Allied lines
men
a large
power
Werner Heisenberg, and subsequently
peaceful purposes. "If
to
sequestered them in an eighteenth-
Germany
When
century English manor house. Farm
marked, "we could have succeeded." Re-
would return the next day
complete
retreated
and then hurried on to
Goudsmit was widely respected
Hall. (Later,
Goudsmit was
for
both his knowledge of nuclear physics
also spirited
out of Germany; Allied authorities feared that the Russians
the next mission.
46
—
of
he found his childhood
gence, this wing of Alsos operated
The army appointed Major Boris
MHQ
something that was
signment
As nuclear intelligence was treated separately
scientists; in addition,
him.) Before he
left
might capture
the Continent,
however, Goudsmit visited his
home
cently,
to
we had all wanted win the war," one re-
American historian Thomas
Powers has argued that Heisenberg was largely telling the truth. In Heisenberg's
War
(1993), Powers suggests that
Heisenberg deliberately tried to retard
operational jet plane. The chief rea-
Meanwhile, part of the team had begun to interrogate some captured German scientists, and one confessed
sons the Nazis did not produce a nu-
that he had hidden valuable scientific
Germany's progress toward atomic
rockets.
With the Messerschmitt 262,
weapons and,
German
scientists
may have
virtually single-handedly,
saved humanity from an in-
credible disaster.
This view, needless to say, ly
Most American
controversial.
ans dismiss
it
extreme-
is
histori-
out of hand. David Hol-
Powers has
linger believes that
fallen vic-
tim to the myth of the heroic "scientistas-hero," the
man who from
tiny of the world
German
from the quest
his private labora-
Mark Walker has argued
tory. Similarly,
that the
controls the des-
away
scientists turned
for a nuclear
weapon or
a
first
had developed the
weapon had nothing
clear
to
do with
documents
in a
drum
that had been
The
dropped into a nearby cesspool. Goud-
absence of a German nuclear weapon
smit oversaw the somewhat daunting
con-
task of recovering the container, but the
their technical or scientific skills.
can be traced solely to the
political
ditions and cultural context that en-
results
veloped their world.
hidden drum held the chief reports on
All this
meant
that
when
the Alsos
mission arrived at the various
the
German
were well worth the
effort:
The
German uranium project. in November 1944, Goudsmit
Back
nuclear installations, they found that
had concluded from his perusal of the
uranium project had barely
captured Strasbourg documents that the
the Nazi
nuclear "poison" largely because they as-
emerged from the
theoretical stage. Al-
German atomic program could never
sumed
though the German physicists had completed some rather extensive work
have produced a weapon. The finds in
the war would be over by 1942,
and there would be no need
for these
the Hechingen region confirmed this
weapons. The Nazi General Staff showed interest in a
little
weapon
that
seemed
to
have no immediate battlefield
The Nazi General Staff showed little interest in a weapon that seemed to have no im-
use. Hitler also failed to appreciate the military significance
of atomic power.
When
Berlin
finally realized that the
would be
mediate battlefield use. Hitler also failed to
war
appreciate
a long one, they
its
military significance.
could not muster the enormous indus-
resources needed to produce an
trial
with uranium
atomic bomb.
Although the Manhattan Project
in-
volved perhaps 250,000 people, fewer
Allied
than 100 scientists were connected with
the
German uranium
their
atomic
research.
effort cost
while the
German
about $2
lion.
Allied
billion,
war
if
of
to
over
them
It
utilized the
have considered
not a major weapon of war.
Finally, the
to
German
Black Forest region of
zone of occupation. Groves,
French left-wing perately
produce an atomic weapon because
feared
to keep both
German
scientists out of
French hands. In mid-April 1945, Pash
bluffed their
and his team
way through various
French checkpoints to occupy the hamlet
scientists failed
wanted
who
political leanings, des-
uranium and German
German
atomic research as an academic exercise,
in the
Alamos. In
of
modest laboratories
that were hidden in an cave, a
of Hechingen.
On
April 23, they dis-
covered a heavy steel door that led into a cave
dug into the base
gon ly:
weapons during World War
II.
The
proj-
we have such
a
it."
of an eighty-
official to
open
is
a professor of history
New Mexico and
the
upon the Nazi
author of two books on the atomic
—the chief German
bomb: The Day the Sun Rose Twice:
the door, they stumbled
uranium "machine"
"if
weapon, we are going to use
Ferenc M. Szasz
could have manufactured atomic
succinct-
"Of course, you understand, Sam," the major replied,
at the University of
tainly
it
to use ours."
When
they ordered an
to the Penta-
"Isn't it wonderful that the Germans have no atomic bomb?" Goudsmit had earlier remarked to army major Robert K. Furman. "Now we won't have
German
cer-
textile fac-
an old brewery.
"Boris Pash has hit the jackpot."
foot cliff that towered above the town.
But the Germans
in
Washington phrased
they could never enlist the support of industry.
underground
made-over wing of a
and a few rooms
in
estab-
they had erected only a
fact,
number
small
The message radioed back
chiefly to gain funding for their pet
seemed
towns
to several small
Germany had
scheduled to become part of the French
research projects. Most of the scientists
uranium research
move
forced to
a doubt.
no Oak Ridge, Hanford, or Los
lished
of about $1 mil-
among themselves
many
raids in the Berlin area,
Germans had been
beyond
tory,
petty matters of rank and reputation.
appears as
bombing
of heavy
southern Germany. This section was
Moreover, the German scientists
often quarreled
research re-
had to sur-
scientists
on the equivalent
vive
The
piles, their
mained preliminary. Because
ects that the Reich supported with both
atomic
Pash remained nonplussed,
The Story of the Trinity Site Nuclear
men and money
but his scientific colleagues were over-
Explosion, July 16, 1945 and The Brit-
proved eminently suc-
pile.
cessful.
At the war's close, the Germans
joyed. After
led the
world with their V-1 and V-2
they dynamited the cave.
removing the equipment,
ish Scientists ject:
and
the Manhattan Pro-
The Los Alamo Years.
MHQ 47
—
iROMMEL'SLASTBAniE Normandy was one of the
most brilliant it was
field marshal's
campaigns —but from the beginning he knew
and talked openly of surrender.
hopeless
by Sir David Fraser
Marshal Erwin
Field at his home
many, visiting birthday,
Rommel was
near Ulm, inGerhis wife
when
on her
came
the call
early that morning: Allied para-
losophy for the defense of France; indeed, in Africa and then in Italy
Germany's only hope
as,
—that
came
Rommel
struggled with
all
lay in peace, that
The ordeal began midmorning on
the material balance of power was so hostile to
July,
three parts of himself.
Germany
that the nation
June
6,
when he became
positive that
troops had landed in Normandy. His
could be saved ultimate and total de-
an invasion was taking place. He drove
cam-
struction only by reaching an arrange-
back to France, stopping
ment with the Western powers. He
telephone his headquarters
last
campaign was beginning,
a
paign that claimed him as a casualty
and ended
in the total defeat of the
man armed last
Ger-
forces. Like Napoleon's, his
campaign, his
last battle,
ended
in
catastrophe.
Rommel conducted
lieved that this
arrangement could best
peared the enemy's main landing area,
ate threat of land
wounded within
whose mind and heart there were deep divisions,
and he found
possible to heal them.
it
three
dif-
ferent persons simultaneously. With part of himself he
was simply the good,
brave, disciplined soldier he had always
been, fighting
—and losing through no against the —
own
and the
belief
for a little the
immedi-
had been committed
to counterattack.
war on two
fronts;
It
strengthened his
efforts,
the easternmost (and nearest)
had, at 7:30 a.m., five minutes after
enemy
turned out, to
landings from the sea had touched
battle on the ground. With the third part of himself, in
down. The 21st Panzer, however, was
Rommel drew
grenadier battalions had been deployed
unavailing efforts as
it
win the defensive
decreasingly
He was
to
tank division within reach of what ap-
Throughout
man
Roche-Guyon, along the Seine,
to
La
Wehrmacht had won some
the
deal of internal torment.
he was a
at
sort of temporary success in the West,
when
could only be
had eliminated
field,
Nancy
check that the 21st Panzer, the only
— perhaps
with a good
from the
at
— secured
be
it
the weeks until he was carried
be-
those weeks,
inevitable
conclusions from the second, from the patriot clear.
who saw
the strategic situation
These conclusions were,
it
may
be contended, tardy. They were cer-
considerably dispersed.
Its
four panzer
on either side of the Orne River, around and north of Caen,
to stiffen
the static division (716th) responsible for that part of the coast.
Panzer
final obstacle to
grenadiers possessed mobility and
odds, doing his intelligent best during
peace lay in the person and character
heavy weapons; they constituted a
that battle, reacting with skill and forti-
of the fiihrer himself. Hitler, clear-
counterattack force, and their presence
tude to depressing military circum-
sighted in this at least, had said that
in that sector
stances, maintaining men's spirits as
nobody would make peace with him.
but the
fault of his
far as
a battle
he could, never giving
erational
in.
The op-
dilemmas were comparatively
straightforward, but they were appalling,
the
and Rommel faced them with
mounting sense
that his superiors
tainly unpalatable.
The
fiihrer had, as
The
Rommel had
and unwillingly learned
by
now
in part, placed
sion.
tinger, reasonably
dispersion
much
meant that
in
of the world not
simply as an enemy statesman but as a
Germany
it,
where
complained that the
— ordered
himself beyond the international pale,
was adjudged
undoubtedly helped
commander of the panzer diviMajor General Edgar Feuchby
his strength
Rommel was every-
dissipated. In the conditions of
Rommel's
were refusing to recognize the truth of
criminal. With Hitler ruling,
the situation as
could expect nothing but a continu-
convictions, dissipated strength mat-
With another part of himself he was
ance of war, of pounding to pieces by
tered less than the ability to respond
the patriot with a perfectly clear stra-
the Western air forces; could ultimate-
tegic sense, realized
it
evolved.
who
when
first
realized
— as
he had
formulating his phi-
ly
expect only the overrunning by the
Red Army from the
east.
As June be-
Normandy, and according
to
instantly wherever the enemy's initial fell. But, as Rommel had movement was desperately
blows
fore-
cast,
diffi-
some on
cult and traffic chaos considerable
perfectly well that not every mile of
that
throughout that and the next day and
threatened coastline could be within
lieved that
throughout the area of operations.
easy reach of panzer reserves; "immedi-
have
When Rommel Guyon
reached La Roche-
at half past nine in the evening,
he was briefed on the situation as it
far as
was known. The enemy was ashore;
the
German
side have be-
Rommel, on June
somehow
6,
might
inspired earlier counter-
must enemy was still defensive zone. Had
action. Given the fact of Allied air power,
he been given operational control of
move, given the distant deployment
ate" or "timely" counterattack
mean
action
when
the
within the coastal
OKW
(German high com-
however, given the delay imposed on every daylight
German operational
areas of the panzer reserves, and given
ashore in shallow beachheads, separated
more
from each other, but ashore. He had not
mand) reserve
been dislodged or driven into the sea by
he would have been able to deploy some
sought a decision until he was sure that
immediate counterattack, but neither
tanks farther west, able to counter-
this
had he been able
attack early toward Bayeux or Ca-
believe that his presence,
to establish himself at
rentan; but his
certain key points such as Caen.
In dealing with these events,
mentators on both sides of the
comline
have periodically criticized both Rommel's dispositions and his absence. His
deployments have been blamed for
Division's counteraction, by dispersing
the division; and for denying to the other sectors targeted by the Allied invasion any possibility of armored counall,
run to that
in
Panzer Group West,
own
resources had not
—that which alone
might
have tipped the scales.
As to his absence time
lost before
in
Germany and
he reappeared,
it is
the
true
^B
Rommel
was a major
could not have
assault,
it is
difficult to
however per-
suasive, could have decisively affected
the panzer counterattack on June is
6.
surely also true that, given the
weight of Allied assault, the weight of aerial
bombardment and
ship-to-shore
>
bombardment
(often stunning the Ger- I
mans with
accuracy and
its
lethality), % c z
since no panzers were
within reach. But
the fact that
It
re-
ducing the impact of the 21st Panzer
terstroke at
of the
Rommel had known
\
A composite photograph juxtaposes Rommel with some of his troops in
o
northern France in February 1944,
s
soon after Hitler assigned him the
m
task of organizing defenses.
i
^ W V*-
g
^
— the strength simultaneously at several
Rommel had
points, together with the extremely
day.
successful airborne assault
— even a
Caen front that
On June
Rommel
10,
Geyr
visited
at
on the redoubtable Ober-
Panzer Group West headquarters in an
gruppenfuhrer Sepp Dietrich, comman-
orchard at Le Caine. twenty miles south
SS Panzer Corps,
a rough-
of Caen.
They discussed the
and
der of the
21st Panzer Division would have affect-
neck Nazi who, despite Rommel's aver-
ammunition
ed only one local situation. The Allied
sion to the SS, gave his army-group
replenishment convoys were having to
was destined
named to
Overlord, and
it
overcome. Material su-
periority, ingenuity, practice,
and plan-
— together with human courage and resourcefulness — triumphed. Only ning
wholehearted acceptance by Hitler and the
OKW
Rommel's
of
under
his
"heretical" pro-
more panzer
divisions
own operational
control
posal, to deploy
I
commander marked visions
total loyalty.
had the panzer
bitterly that
—and
Rommel
trip of
125 miles, so
dumps and communications. The
ardous and sometimes impossible.
evenings previously. This was
The
essential
now was
enemy from
spilt milk.
to contest the
to prevent
cutting off the Coten-
The next
Rommel visit
day,
June
9,
Division arrived in the
happened. The
however, was
still
Chartres.
Geyr, having planned to
left
the 12th SS Panzer Division, and
found the journey impracticable unless he were minded
for suicide;
Two more
the Panzer Lehr
Caen sector from
infantry divisions,
or detected by radio
was unclear
(it
the 346th and 711th, had sidestepped
Ultra, the vital Allied tion).
about four miles. The invaders might
the westward-facing
though he
Rommel's defending
east of the Orne;
German
defenses
and there were now
three Panzer divisions ringing Caen.
Most
wrote,
was, of course, from
west from the Seine basin to strengthen
it,
af-
civilians
Rommel
fix,
it.
know
and that
—whether betrayed by
bombed
The penetration toward Caen was only
did not
not,
—was haz-
ternoon Geyr's own headquarters was
tin Peninsula.
had
yet be driven into the sea;
Luft-
waffe appeared totally absent. All move-
could have been a stronger attack two
to forestall
confined to the coastal zone or near
seri-
Rommel's own movement
Rommel had hoped battle,
SS— been
round
a
ment—including, more often than
the
D-Day, France had been invaded. What
ous had been the enemy's attrition of
nearer the coast as he had desired, there
ground around Caen and
called
make
di-
permitted actually to deploy their tanks
changed
history.
fuel
Both were bad
situation.
re-
he meant
in this instance
both the 21st and the 12th
and very near the coast, might have By the end of what the enemy
decoding opera-
of Geyr's staff
were
killed,
and any offensive planned by Panzer Group West was The
halted.
was turning, once more,
battle
forces had checked the Allied advance
General Geyr von Schweppenburg,
into a Materialschlacht (material
many
commander
battle);
miles short of the objectives that
General Bernard Montgomery, com-
manding
the Anglo-American inva-
all
sion forces, had ly
set.
But unless whol-
extraordinary successes could be
achieved in the next few days, Ger-
many, on June
was facing what Rom-
Group West,
planned a limited thrust northward
Rommel's forces were being pounded to pieces by the enemy's
from Caen astride the light-gauge
weight of
of Panzer
rail-
fire
from ground,
sea,
and
air,
way, to drive a disruptive salient into
and by the enemy's seemingly inex-
enemy
haustible supplies of ammunition.
the British front. In the west the
had cleared
was
Isigny, but his progress
Rommel remained
as sure as he
had
slow in the difficult bocage country
been from before the beginning that
mel had always regarded as certain to
south of the place as well as in the
this
lead to ultimate disaster in the field: a
claimed marshland between the coast,
remedied by concentration, by an oper-
protracted land war on two main fronts.
Carentan, and Sainte-Mere-Eglise. The
ational offensive
German
much
The two
in the east,
7,
principal areas of concern to
Rommel were
the sector around Caen,
and Cherbourg, on the Co-
re-
front was holding.
But the enemy front was now nearly
was not
a situation that could be
—the
of the terrain
air situation
and
made such con-
cepts wholly impracticable.
The only
continuous, beachheads clearly soon to
resource was to patch up a stretching
be linked and being reinforced
front, to strike locally
the
all
and hard when-
signifi-
reached a line only just short of the
cant progress in these two directions,
Merderet River, a few miles northwest
enemy gave the opportunity, to keep him hemmed in as far as possible. Often the intensity of enemy fire made
him by
of Carentan, while the next day a Brit-
even local and limited countermoves
tentin Peninsula, in the west. As long as
the
enemy could be denied any
there was a chance of smashing
time. By June 10, the Americans had
— identified as the
counterattacks, necessarily local though
ish division
these might be. Denied Caen, the invad-
Highland, familiar to
er's left flank
had no firm hinge and was
Alamein days
51st
—attacked southward
in
but there were occasional rays of
that
8,
east of the
Orne
River, north of Caen.
The 12th SS Panzer Division had now joined the battle and, on the night of
June erful
8,
attacked strongly, using
its
Panther tanks, toward the
powsea.
was smashed within hours by
counterattacks, short jabs that
local
Rom-
The enemy often seemed have been checked
— indeed driven back —on those
with remarkable celerity
demanded and which were
casions
—and the
all
that his
air situation
—
per-
light.
to be sluggish,
slow to exploit tactical success, and to
mel was sure the situation everywhere resources
men and
equipment were mounting alarmingly;
had no major
During June 7 and
impossible, and casualties in
El
the sector east of the Orne, an attack
port.
ever the
Rommel from
vulnerable; while without Cherbourg he
there was heavy fighting both west and
50
visited the
called
heavier and earlier counterattack by the
invasion was
MHQ
He
able to
when show
the
oc-
Germans had been
fierce local strength.
88mm
gun
The
— here,
mitted. East of the Orne, nevertheless,
Tiger tank with
panzer casualties were heavy.
as in Africa, master of tank-versus-tank
its
combat
— had achieved some astonishwhen committed
ing successes, even singly or in tiny
tiny
numbers; indeed, only
numbers were
available, but they
had undoubtedly spread alarm. During the
first
fortnight in July, they began to
arrive in larger
On June
numbers.
Corps (General Hans von Funck)
paratively small.
2nd Panzer Division
and
Villers-Bocage.
at
Bremoy, near
He found
that the Panzer
Lehr Division had defeated
a British
of the troops
tance of Rommel's, began moving
they were being exposed to a terrible
around the west of Caen. On June
battering,
own
and here Rommel questioned
his
southwest of Caen
sympathy with
itself;
but here one
moved from the south
into
the town, shooting up everything in
its
the heart
commendably sound. But
entered Villers-Bocage, fifteen miles
Tiger tank
were needed
decide,
Rommel found
Division, another old desert acquain-
it
ed,
He had been wholly
time there
his wishes
Rommel's
in
in the coastal defensive
zone had been Rommel's own message to
were now four panzer divisions. The
the
Now, however,
first day.
—
if
originally left a
the
deal to be desired, proximity, as far as
Normandy went, now tended
lished himself ashore. Every effort hav-
ence; senior
13, they
were reinforced by the 2nd
ing been
made
made and continuing
to eject that
enemy,
it
to be
was now
Panzer from Pas de Calais, after a most
essential therefore to redeploy troops
laborious journey. Rommel's armor
where necessary
was nearly concentrated, and there was
and
more
lar,
to
come.
That same day, the two western
enemy beachheads
linked up; on the
to
to fight
minimize the
another day
effect, in particu-
of naval gunfire. This implied
mat-
ter of days before the Cotentin Peninsula
was cut difficult
off.
On June
14,
Rommel made
a
journey from the XLVII Panzer
Rommel inspects landing-craft obstacles on the mobile tactics he
experi-
withdrawals. This meant that virtually every
movement
approval.
It
was
of troops needed
OKW
a ludicrous interfer-
ence from on high in tactical
detail.
the French beaches. Abandoning
had used brilliantly when Germany was
commanders were
in-
evitably involved in the tactical battle
on so confined a
On June
17,
field.
Rommel
drove to a tem-
porary headquarters Hitler had established at Margival near Soissons, in
Champagne,
in quarters originally pre-
vasion of England that never happened.
Rommel's
ence) an order from Hitler himself: no
clearly only a
scope for
confusion or inappropriate interfer-
but there had been
sector the defenders were being pushed
was
to correct
pared for the fiihrer during the 1940 in-
it
(as so often before in
it
left little
implied certain
operational freedom; local withdrawals;
some
previous day Carentan had fallen. In that
westward, and
side's
German chain of good
neighbors, and
the 21st Panzer on the ground,
all
Each
command had
Panzer Lehr and 12th SS had joined
SS Panzer Corps. On June
without
visits at this
occasion usurped
his subordinates' roles.
the error; proximity
I
was
no particular sense of the
is
commander who on
enemy had tenuously but indubitably won the first battle and estab-
under the
it
fighting in very close collusion with
checked and turned. Ringing Caen
—
and
any case, to inspect,
Hitler's initial determi-
path, and the British advance was
from his
instantly;
in
and express
But
in a
team, in Normandy, was necessarily
must be won
all
men
of
in
orders.
nation not to give ground; that the battle
delay.
was com-
when need-
restricted space. Decisions,
them
in that sector.
battlefield
Huge masses
were opposing each other
Rommel's way,
In general,
13,
steel
tank attack and destroyed twenty-five of
Armored
11, the British 7th
The Normandy
in the
west of the Cotentin, driving to meet the
the aggressor,
he planned to fight off the Allied assault from strong fixed positions.
Rommel welcomed The grimness
the
summons.
of the situation,
he hoped to impress on in
^
which
|
Hitler, derived, |
Rommel's view, from two
self- I
evident factors, and although he had
^
probably underestimated one, he had
i
their
all
among
most experienced
others. This
enemy was committed Normandy,
of
to exploitation
prime emphasis upon
to
although a landing
it,
Calais area
was
divisions,
showed that the
in the Pas-de-
possible.
still
Rundstedt
suggested certain anodyne principles agreement: that the enemy bridge-
for
head must be contained; that
"tactical
adjustments should depend on the local situation" (surely ly
an optimistical-
crafty formulation); that reserves
should be held ready for commitment against attempts to break out of the
bridgehead.
On
the "Atlantic Wall" in January 1944,
Rommel and his staff study
Rommel,
warned
finally,
against leaving the panzer divisions
the sea-
within range of naval gunfire; and em-
borne approaches the Allied armies will use.
phasized that to use them in largegiven
fair
weight to the other.
It
result-
ed from the enemy's total air superiority,
which he had
forecast;
and from the
defense
air
that reduced
—
lack it
was
was
air
power
this deficiency
movement and thus
scale attacks
As
far as
would wear them down.
could be managed, infantry
di-
re-
visions should be deployed holding
enemy's huge materiel superiority,
plenishment to pitiable proportions.
ground and the panzers be withdrawn
The troops were fighting well against
to reserve,
Normandy
great odds, but the battle was being
was rapidly turning into an It
was
as
it
added
had been
more
siderably
so;
El Alamein.
and there was an
produced the one detailed request he
— naval ship-to—which was tipping the
maining within range of to
All this led
it.
Convinced
that the only hope for
as he
was
stale-
in the West, providing a rational
basis for negotiation
and permitting
inforcement of the Eastern Front least in the short term,
this strategic
re-
at
he had pinned
hope on the
tactical de-
enemy invasion. That hope had almost died. An established western front the phenomenon he had feat of the
— feared —was near not hold
it
reality;
and he could
long.
At the conference on June 17, Hitler
made a surprisingly robust impression, and he was able for a tiny while to communicate something like optimism
Rommel opened
wanted
to carry with Hitler
— permis-
on the flanks of possible enemy breakout axes and out of range of enemy ships' guns.
tentin,
and thus Cherbourg, must be
A
held as long as possible.
ern part of the Cotentin Peninsula to-
sive battle in the rest of the bridge-
ward Cherbourg.
head
Then
Hitler spoke.
would now,
The Cotentin
inevitably, be cut in two,
accepted that; but Cherbourg
he
itself
must be strengthened and must for a while be held at all costs. An exceptionally able
ed
commander must
—Cherbourg must
until mid-July.
be appoint-
certainly hold out
Without Cherbourg the
and could become
the
enemy could
He must,
was by interdicting
the air and sea measures that he. Hitler,
had already spoken about. And with his hearers
By
had
a bitter coincidence, the Margival
conference was followed by a ferocious
to the
four-day storm, which disrupted Allied
supply for a while (just as Hitler had
new mining program, undertaken
promised would be accomplished by the
situation;
was the key
by both the Luftwaffe and the Kriegs-
Kriegsmarine, rather than divine inter-
marine between Le Havre and the east
vention); but the
coast of the Cotentin, late
Normandy from
which would
iso-
sea supply. As to
in
no condition
and exploit
German
this circumstance.
the rest, Hitler contented himself with
The second period
had another session with
the analogy with Africa
was using
his
— the
enemy
huge materiel superiori-
ty to steamroll the
way
to success.
The
forces were
to take the offensive
to clear up.
He drew
this
to be content.
deal lasted
on the map, of enemy and Ger-
him
through
his supplies
Orne appeared particularly important
positions and strengths.
an
therefore,
be attacked, and the way to attack
saying that the situation east of the
man
^was
build up too great a
materiel superiority.
pro-
tion,
—
to Carentan
and he gave promises
This, Hitler said,
whole of a
critical.
purely defen-
unacceptable long-term concept because
enemy's supply situation would remain difficult
—from Caen
ceedings with a pretty accurate indica-
to his hearers.
empha-
Hitler, in concluding, again
sized that the northern part of the Co-
sion to withdraw troops in the north-
in
Germany would
have lain in some sort of strategic
mate
re-
renewed pessimism
strategic terms.
Marshal Gerd von
Rundstedt made a few observations and
odds even further against troops
Rommel
lost in the air. Field
in Africa, but con-
tactical factor
shore gunnery
52
and
German
which had been deployed ashore with great energy and ingenuity.
MHQ
greatest
As to Rundstedt's brief survey of possible
enemy landings on other
parts of
the coast, Hitler observed that the British
had now deployed
in
Normandy
this
of
from June 18
Rommel's to 29,
Hitler.
During
time the situation in Normandy
worsened remorselessly. On June it
or-
when he
happened, the enemy
itself
18, as
command had
judged that the bridgehead was
firm and that the
first
Rommel
phase of Overlord
discussed the situation with
had been accomplished. In the west.
Rundstedt on June 26, and telephoned
American progress
him again next evening
Cotentin was
in the
was an
relentless. In the bocage, there
that
— the same day
Cherbourg surrendered, although
arms against Germany. Victory was out
The enemy had now
of the question.
won
The war
his foothold in the West.
must be ended.
unending sequence of enemy pushes,
German
both small-scale and large-scale, each
as a port for a further four weeks.
and drove next morning
accompanied by intensive
Would Rundstedt agree
gaden. There he found both Joseph
and
artillery
was fighting of a
air attack; this
partic-
ularly expensive kind, high in casual-
small advances purchased with a
ties,
good deal
and
of blood both of attackers
defenders. Tactically, the
Army Group B
it,
of
to
Rommel's
Goebbels, the propaganda minister,
gaden to seek another interview with
and SS chief Heinrich Himmler and
the fiihrer and to lay before
him
17, they
the
full
decided to try a word with
had been given promises of
the ever-friendly Goebbels, he sup-
—and
posed
had gained an
was perfectly plain that even
It
before
reporting to Hitler. After a talk with
enemy's supplies would be interdicted.
The front
them
On June
seriousness of the situation?
but their strength attrition.
to Berchtes-
a special journey to Berchtes-
miraculous methods by which the
was being sapped by
home
spent that night at
that they often
still felt
had the best of
Germans
making
Rommel
efforts destroyed its function
these
if
Wolfram
said to
— that he
ally for his project:
unvarnished truth
telling Hitler the
was not long, and 2 million men were
measures came about, they would take
and asking that conclusions be drawn.
contesting
time to be effective
— and there was,
Wolfram was unconvinced; nor was he
As the
it.
last
ten days of June passed,
anyway, no sign of them. Meanwhile,
convinced that
more acutely the im-
the situation on the ground was getting
Himmler
Rommel
felt
minence
of catastrophe,
ever
and sometimes
spoke to intimates about feeling of deja
it,
about his
vu as he watched the ad-
worse
daily.
Hitler
was
or at least
vance of a calamity he could do nothing to avert but for which he sponsible.
When
he had
left
felt re-
Hitler
on
the afternoon of June 17, he had been initially
almost buoyant. But as the
days went by, and the
known
and the enemy
aircraft flew sortie after
and the bombs and shells
sortie,
and men died and that
of
its
OKW,
Himmler, according
At six o'clock the session with Hitler
would accompany
began. Besides Rundstedt, Field Mar-
men
him. Both
set out
on June
met by arrangement near main road
to
Paris
and
28,
on the
Germany, Rommel being
accompanied on
this occasion by
Colonel Hans-Georg von Tempelhoff s assistant.
Major Eberhard Wolfram, as
well as Captain
Helmuth Lang.
shal al
Wilhelm
and Colonel Gener-
Keitel
Alfred Jodl from the
ent;
and
after
OKW were
were joined by Reichsmarschall Her-
mann Goring and Grand Admiral commanders
Donitz,
and the Kriegsmarine respectively,
Rommel and Rundstedt spoke
to-
of
it.
said,
the West) and
"I
agree with you. The war must be
According
strategically? And, that meant,
what could be hoped
Rommel
local;
politically?
What
could be hoped for Germany?
"Herr Rundstedt,"
ended immediately.
I
shall tell the
Hitler
many
with a number of
harangue
— dignified by the
term directive
body
will
very well what that im-
others.
summed up
Rommel knew
Hitler not said to him, "No-
Sperrle
to the official record,
points, a
—had
Hugo
of the Third Air Force in
fuhrer so, clearly and unequivocally."
plied
as
well as by the large and stertorously
hoped
what could be
at the tactical level,
hoped
and very
Karl
of the Luftwaffe
(commander
that could be
pres-
two and a half hours they
breathing Field Marshal
all
re-
Rundstedt agreed to Rommel's pro-
could hear the conversation, or some
that were
Wolfram,
to
mained "opaque."
members.
gether for some time, and Wolfram
if
on the
fighting performance of the Waffen SS.
to believe any-
was impossible
sional, purely defensive,
and
fell,
told the truth by the
some
posal and said he
Rommel found
died,
did not believe
in tactical successes, except occa-
it
more
enemy was
time reinforced,
to be all the
Rommel
Rommel had turned
into an ally by dilating
— of startling banality,
and irrelevance
falsity,
to the real
make peace with me"? But
needs of the situation. The most im-
When he visited Sepp Dietrich on June 21, Rommel heard that the SS Panzer
the recent fighting and simple logic
portant task, the fuhrer said, was to
Corps commander was tolerably confi-
matter that could be deferred. The
dent of holding any British push with
stalemate from which
There were occasional shafts of
light.
I
his panzer divisions.
The long-expected
had persuaded him that
ly
this
was not
a
halt the
enemy
to clearing
offensive, preparatory
up the whole
Allied bridge-
— unrealistical-
head. This would largely be accom-
— he had hoped negotiation might be
plished by the Luftwaffe; in addition,
V-weapons had been launched against
developed was not going to happen.
mining
England on the night of June
The fighting
rupt Anglo-American supplies.
at sea
would decisively
inter-
A
West had to be stopped. Every day would make matters worse. And as he drove on toward Germany, Rommel quietly said to
vice.
be told by Feuchtinger of the 21st
Wolfram what was
and submarines would soon be operat-
Panzer Division that he could enlist
myself responsible to the
2,000 French volunteers, keen to fight
people."
12,
and a
ripple of
optimism had run along the
German
front. Since
failing,
was agreeable
it
against the British,
if it
manpower was for Rommel to
were permitted.
Such things gave temporary hope.
in the
in his heart: "I feel
German
ety of special aircraft
A
weapons
—were about large
number
ing in the English
vari-
—and 1,000 new
to
come
into ser-
of torpedo boats
Channel— in,
at the
burden could not
most, four weeks. And fleets of new
simply be regarded as that of a military
transport vehicles would soon be mov-
commander. The whole world was
ing west from the Reich.
He
said his
in
MHQ 53
"
/n /7Am captured by Allied soldiers after the ficers like
But
off the record, at the start of the
conference matters had gone as no
staff
stenographer recorded. Hitler
officer or
had asked Rommel to speak
Rommel had begun,
as he
first;
at
chance to
and
had vowed,
by saying he thought that day the
moment
last
which he would have the
lay the
whole situation
pamer troops
progress halted, and in these final
weeks Rommel was everywhere. But
not leave without having spoken to Hitler about
think you had
commander was minded to help bring that peace about in which case it
Hitler responded
He never saw
icily, "I
Rommel
him sharply. please
concern himself with the military, not
Rommel
—
must
Hitler again.
Henceforth, Rommel's mind was and during the
last
two and a half
his active service, the third pe-
riod of his ordeal, he spoke
Would the Herr Feldmarschall
left.
fall
to act.
weeks of
many who,
to a
it
good
shattered by the course of
events, asked to the
peace, and he
could not believe that the supreme
in the
this dis-
Germany must have
Germany. "Field Marshal,"
better leave the room."
many," he continued, "and
—
relax before battle. Inspired by charismatic of-
odds.
he said that he could
for its inadequacy,
clear,
Hitler interrupted
him what was
army and
to
to
happen
Germany. He did
his
He
vital to still
to
somebody
believed that
else, it
with power
was obviously
Germans Time had
seek peace while the
held
some
territory.
nearly run out.
Rommel visited Geyr at Panzer Group West the day after returning from Germany and told him at least some of what had transpired. They dis-
re-
duty assiduously, visiting, cheering,
cussed the Caen sector, on both sides
deal
correcting errors, proposing tactical
of the Orne.
with the whole situation. Hitler again
improvements with as much energy
to try a
rebuked him, telling him to deal only
ever.
with the military situation.
tray his
the political, situation. joined that history
Rommel took
its
demanded he
did so, and the conference
unrealistic course. Before
ended, however, he
54
invasion,
tempt. Having castigated the Luftwaffe
West before the fiihrer. "The whole world stands arrayed against Gerproportion of strength
MHQ
Normandy
Rommel, the German army fought well against daunting
made
it
a final at-
To do
less
would have been
men. He was
and Germany was it
lay
their
still
as
to be-
commander,
at war.
As
far as
with Rommel, the enemy's attacks
would be defeated and the enemy's
The enemy was very
likely
major breakout there; and dur-
ing the next fortnight
Rommel
visited
that area frequently. Geyr wished to
hold the three divisions of the
I
SS
Panzer Corps over twenty miles south of Caen, in
woods near Saint-Laurent-
de-Conde, poised to strike any massed
enemy advance on advantageous ground. Rommel disagreed. True to
tonished disbelief. "And what
hindrance has a paralyzing effect and
fiihrer refuses?"
the philosophy he had held through-
during the barrage this effect on
out, he believed that at least part of the
experienced troops
panzer force should remain immedi-
shaking."
and southeast of Caen,
ately east
to
To withdraw most of
stiffen the front.
Many
is
in-
literally soul-
a British veteran of
Dunkirk would have agreed with him;
and losses were appalling from
the armor as far as Geyr proposed
lery as well as air strikes.
would be
enemy
artil-
Even the
to leave the infantry,
unsup-
smallest
ported, to be rolled up by the
enemy
preceded by saturation bombardment.
when it
it
was
would
attacked
—and
he agreed that
certainly attack,
if
On
attacks appeared to be
Rommel found one
July 14,
his last conversation with
Geyr. Hitler had heard that the
com-
Group West was as commander of Army and even more anxious to
of Panzer
pessimistic as the
—
Group B
to positions in
depth
— and
had ordered his replacement. Succeed-
command
left
—
Sometimes Rommel talked
fall-
of the
the
open the west
that the Anglo-Ameri-
To
his old subordinate Siegfried
Westphal, also serving in Normandy,
Rommel spoke
in the
same grim
sense.
Later he told his son, Manfred, that the
time to "open the west front" would
ultimately broke out.
en.
withdraw
tant matter
have been
800 had already
if
cans reach Berlin before the Russians."
1,000 reinforcements received since
the V-1 sites.
mander
said, "I
with as-
There would be only one impor-
front.
only to race
battle began, over
was
Rommel
"Then,"
at
chute regiment wherein, of a total of
by the shortest route eastward toward
It
para-
Warning looked
enemy
in this sector that the
Rommel
The feeling of helplessness against enemy aircraft operating without any
when
the Anglo-Americans
Then
possible unilaterally to
tance and
should be
it
abandon
resis-
the impetus of purely mil-
let
possibility of suicide, but only to reject
itary events set the pace of history,
was
since political initiatives had been ne-
In these circumstances suicide
it.
But by the time of
merely desertion.
glected.
who had long served Rommel and knew him
sation, all
Old acquaintances, officers
matter to him plainly, and
well, put the
he to them. "Lattmann,"
Rommel had
this conver-
had moved on.
Rommel's "ultimatum" with
Field
Marshal Hans Giinther von Kluge was
of the panzer
asked his artillery representative on
in fact
group was General Heinrich Eberbach.
July 10, as they drove together to visit
July 16. Geyr had not been the only ca-
ing Geyr in
Visiting
him on
July
Rommel
5,
again
discussed the Caen sector. The enemy,
when
attacked southward
it
Orne, as
it
eas*^
of the
undoubtedly would, must be
broken up by antitank
artillery fire,
Nebelwerfer (rocket launchers), and panzers. The defense
must be organized
including the panzers,
All divisions,
were now very short of
men
as well as
equipment, and divisions from other
—
like the Fifteenth
arriving in
LXXXIV
Army's
—were
Normandy without
complement. Rommel returned sector, east of Caen,
and
casions, July 12
a full to this
Corps, "what do you think
about the end of the war?"
win is evident. enough strength
we can — hope He meant I
make a He still
an
drive the defeatism
— out
Army Group
B.
officer
who
—and the
of the
could
insubor-
commander
of
Rundstedt had sent a
pessimistic report to the
OKW
urging,
withdrawal at least from the
truce, against Hitler's wishes."
like Geyr,
envisaged, quite unrealistically,
Caen bridgehead, and quoting Rom-
a future in
which the Anglo-Americans
would agree
to help hold the line
against the Soviet Union, and he spoke of this to Colonel
Hans Lattmann. A
mel
—
fairly
— on the
necessity for this
degree at least of operational freedom;
the report had not pleased Hitler.
Asked by Keitel what he
really pro-
few days later he was talking to Lieu-
posed, Rundstedt had said shortly,
suggesting ad-
tenant Colonel Elmar Warning of the
"Make peace!"
maximum
17th Luftwaffe Division. Warning had
15,
depth to the front, replacing panzer
been on Rommel's
units committed to ground-holding
Africa— had, indeed, been
ble.
the fiihrer had decided
ter be replaced, by
dination
my reputation with Rommel said frankly, "to to use
it
that the elderly Rundstedt had also bet-
on two further oc-
justments, aiming to give
with infantry as
keep
to con-
"
tinue, "to reach a decent peace." "I will try
sualty of the meeting with Hitler on
June 29. After
"Herr Feldmarschall, that we can't
the Allies,"
in great depth.
areas
the
signed on the following day,
far as
humanly
possi-
He heard frequent requests
for
when Rommel had
staff in at El
North
Alamein
received Hitler's "no
withdrawal" order. Now, out of earshot
Warning put the question
Kluge was
Hitler's choice to replace
Rundstedt as
OB
West.
A
Prussian, he
had been Rommel's army commander Fourth Army
in 1940, driving the
umphantly through France.
tri-
In the ter-
winter of 1941, he had relieved
withdrawal and refused them. In his or-
of others,
ders he was entirely true to the
frankly: "Field Marshal, what's really
Field Marshal Fedor
going to happen here? Twelve German
mand
divisions are trying to contain the
Eastern Front; and
whole
Kluge's headquarters in 1943 that
Fiihrerbefehl
—the
fiihrer's decree.
But Rommel was under no illusions about what the troops were suffering.
"Our
soldiers,"
wrote one of his com-
manders, "enter the battle its
at the
mous
in
low spir-
thought of the enemy's enor-
is
you something," Rommel
replied. "Field
Marshal von Kluge and
I
have sent the fiihrer an ultimatum. Mil-
al-
itarily the
war
the Luftwaffe?'
must make
a political decision."
material superiority. They are
ways asking 'where
front."
"I'll tell
can't be
won, and he
rible
of
von Bock
in
com-
Army Group Center on it
was
the
after visiting
Hitler had narrowly escaped death at
the hands of conspirators placed a
bomb
who had
in his aircraft.
Before
taking over from Rundstedt, Kluge had
been briefed
at the
OKW; and
he knew.
55
some
forty divisions in the field, but a
simple count of formations meant nothing
—what mattered was that the
Anglo-Americans could
on seem-
call
men,
ingly limitless reinforcements of
equipment, and supplies while the
Wehrmacht was wasting away. Kluge saw Rommel repeatedly during the first fortnight in July, discussing the situation
and dining
July 12. And,
at
La Roche-Guyon on
on July
him what he had
Rommel
16,
sent
described to Warning
ultimatum. He assumed that
as his
would immediately be sent And. indeed, when
it
it
to Hitler.
was forwarded,
Kluge's covering letter said he had con-
cluded that "the
marshal [Rom-
field
mel] was unfortunately right." The
Wehrmacht had
117,000 men,
lost
cluding 2,700 officers, since June
in-
and
6,
had received only 10,000 replacements. It
was time
for truth.
In this brief
Rommel
and stark document,
said the ultimate crisis in
Normandy was now approaching. The troops were fighting heroically, but the
strength of the enemy, above In better days. Hitler greets
Rommel cordially. But the fuhrer never entirely trusted
Rommel, and undercut his scheme
slow arrival of replacements for the
for the defense of Fortress Europe.
hideous losses, the inexperience of course,
from
his experiences in 1940,
Rommel, now
the headstrong nature of
It
first
meeting was disagreeable.
took place on July
3,
immediately
Kluge assumed command at Rommel's headquarters at La RocheGuyon. Kluge told Rommel bluntly
after
that although he
was
was
this that
a field marshal,
Rommel was
angry. He had, he
knew, faithfully obeyed orders. His crime was speaking bluntly about the facts of the situation.
On
July
Kluge a situation report. He the measures he had earlier
5,
he sent
set
down
— repeated-
this,
grounds there were
for the accusation.
sent the report (but not the cov-
Rommel's
first
—Rommel
reiterated to Kluge;
and
he repeated his angry complaints about the early denial to
Army Group B
of
control over the divisions of Panzer
in-
had been unpromising, but Kluge was
a
shrewd, experienced commander, and
it
him long to form his own impressions. They entirely confirmed
did not take
the view of the situation that
had presented to him. tant
how
it
it
It
Rommel
was unimpor-
had happened and whether
could have happened less disastrousthe situation
now was one
possibly hold for
Rommel
in the
into the
near future.
did not put an exact term
on
but the message was clear, and he
knew
that Kluge, from his
vations, endorsed
it.
own
obser-
Rommel had
added to the two-and-a-half-page draft
encounter with Kluge
nent catastrophe. The front could not
tion
which they were
own staff officers, had hurt him deeply. He asked OB West what possible
ly;
All this
to
French hinterland
quences
for resupply of the air situa-
of
enemy must break through
said that Kluge's re-
— requested, and the results of not meeting them. —and the consely
now
formations, and
the intensity of the air and ground
bombardment
marks, in the presence of Rommel's
could derive only
OKW briefing.
German
which he simply
ering letter) to Hitler.
from Kluge's recent
sent
of the
cessantly exposed meant that the
The rebuke, unequivocally, was
for dis-
He
many
the report under cover of a brief note in
And he
it
had pro-
duced the present appalling situation,
he must get used to obeying orders.
obedience; and
56
It
not Rommel's disobedience.
characterized as a pessimist.
Their
Group West.
in
all
tanks and artillery, the paucity and
of
more than
immi-
a
few
weeks. The troops were being ground to
monThe enemy now had
a sentence in his
own hand:
"It is
nec-
essary to draw the political conclusions
from
this situation."
Two
of
Rommel's
staff.
General Hans
Speidel and Colonel Tempelhoff, no
doubt mindful of Hitler's explosion
when Rommel had
tried to advert to
the situation inevitably facing
Germany
as a
consequence of the strategic posi-
tion
on the Western Front, persuaded
Rommel
to delete the
word
He did so. And signed. The next day, Rommel
"political."
set out to
Panzer Corps and two
pieces in a Materialschlacht of
visit
strous proportions.
sions near Villers-Bocage that had ex-
the
II
divi-
"
perienced heavy casualties. Thence he
decided to drive to the
SS Panzer
I
Corps, to Sepp Dietrich; once again to
the threatened sector east of the Orne.
He
Dietrich at 4:00 in the after-
left
noon and took the road through
Enemy
Saint-
Roche-Guyon.
Pierre, en route to La
were active everywhere;
aircraft
to reduce the risk,
Rommel's
driver,
Oberfeldwebel Daniel, was told to take a
minor road before
tion
was
Livarot.
to rejoin the
The inten-
main road
a few
miles north of Vimoutiers, and there-
work eastward toward the
after to
Seine and home.
Rommel's
car reached the
main
road, leading south toward Vimoutiers.
An
air sentry, Obergefreiter
Holke, was
The
riding in the back of the car.
companying
ac-
were Major
staff officers
Neuhaus and Captain Lang.
The bombed conference room at Rastenburg
on Hitler's
life.
ruins after the failed attempt
lies in
Although not a conspirator, Rommel's sympathies sealed his
Suddenly Holke yelled that there were enemy
aircraft
heading in on the
road they were taking; they were com-
ing from behind, low and
was
a
fast.
There
shout to the driver, Daniel, to
speed up, to race 300 yards to where looked possible to pull
off the
it
road and
take cover. Before they got there, the leading car
enemy
went out
a ditch
aircraft
of control
on the
left
opened
The
and ended up
of the road.
had already been hard
fire.
hit
in
Rommel
even before
the second attacking aircraft
came
in,
east of the Orne.
The attack was preced-
to recovery
—had played no
felt
ments
have condemned Germany
in
support of ground forces that
the war had seen. The
went on
bombardment between 5:30
for three hours,
and 8:30 of a beautiful morning. The British VIII Corps, with three
armored
divisions
and an infantry division on the
left flank,
then moved southward. At the
same time the
II
Canadian Corps
tacked in the city of Caen
By the end
at-
tion to lies.
his
make peace
home near
executed
On October
suicide.
of the day, although their
refuse: If he ily
mans were still ground south
was
in control of the
14,
two generals
an offer he believed he could not
with considerable casualties, the Gerat
associates were
Kluge, committed
dispatched by Hitler showed up with
itself.
occupants once again.
was
and
or, like
bodies of
hospital
overtures to the Al-
Ulm, he watched help-
lessly as friends
forward positions had been overrun
The nearest military
high
swallowed poison, his fam-
would be spared. The alternative to
appear before a people's court
on a charge of high treason.
— the property of a monastic
Caen and had destroyed a significant number of enemy tanks. This was no enemy breakout, no defeat. The German assemblage of anti-
in Livarot, near the scene of the
tank guns, supported by the panzer reg-
public was told only that he
wounding; but getting him even there
iments lying back just behind the
fered a heart attack on the
had involved a wait of three-quarters of
ward
positions,
an hour before Lang could get a vehicle.
tion.
The German
Thence an unconscious Rommel,
Perhaps, unlike Napoleon,
five
miles away.
Rommel was
tended by a French doctor hospital
—
order
in a
first at-
French
to-
gether with Daniel, was borne to Bernay.
Rommel's
skull
face.
for-
had done great execu-
was holding.
Rommel
did
last battle after all.
was severely fractured,
and there were wounds and
not lose his
of
line
to the
temple
Daniel died of his injuries.
18, the British
Second
Rommel
drove off with them, and not long
terward the
field
af-
marshal's body was
dropped off at an Ulm hospital. The
meeting.
had sufway to a
Rommel was given a state fu-
neral. Hitler's
wreath and messages of
condolence were conveyed by Rundstedt,
who
said, in the funeral oration,
"His heart belonged to the fiihrer.
On
July 20, 1944, even as
still
Rommel was
lying unconscious. Count Claus
von Stauffenberg placed a briefcase Next day, July
to civil
As he convalesced at Herrlingen,
wrecked car and the prone
Bernay, on the road to Rouen, twenty-
and
war, the Gestapo did learn of his inten-
strafing the its
part,
murdered Hitler would only
ed by one of the greatest air bombard-
that a
fate.
with a
bomb under a
conference table
Sir David Fraser, once
senior generals,
is
one of Britain's
the biographer of
Lord Alanbrooke and a historian of the
Army attacked over the ground that Rommel had repeatedly visited and
at Hitler's
The fUhrer survived the explosion, and
cle
where he had consistently anticipated
the conspirators were rounded up.
Biography of Erwin Rommel, which
Though Rommel
HarperCollins
the next major operation
—
east of Caen,
Rastenburg headquarters.
—by now on his way
British is
army
in
World War
II.
This arti-
excerpted from Knight's Cross:
is
A
publishing.
MHQ 57
fALAISE: THE TRAP
NOT SPRUNG —
Decisions made in the heat of battle even those that can return to haunt, result in great victories
—
by Carlo D'Este
After the
the extraordinary success of
and wounded 490, and
D-Day landings on June
peared to have
forces
1944, Allied
6,
quickly
man
failed.
initially
it
ap-
But when Ger-
resistance suddenly began to col-
Major General
bogged down. Bad weather, the
lapse, Bradley assigned
deadly hedgerows of the Nor-
Troy Middleton's VIII Corps to the
mandy bocage, and of Field Marshal
the furious defense
Erwin Rommel's Ger-
man Army Group B combined
Third
Army
to spearhead a thrust to-
ward Avranches, the
remaining ob-
last
to pre-
stacle to a full-scale breakout into Brit-
vent the Allies from advancing beyond
tany and the plains of southern Nor-
the Caen bridgehead in the east or the
mandy. There he could
Cotentin Peninsula in the west. As the
bility of Patton's
commander in
of
N. Bradley, later wrote, "By July 10,
faced a real danger of a World I-type stalemate."
The
we
War
British failure of
General Bernard Montgomery's Operation
Goodwood
vital
Caen-Falaise plain, as well as sev-
eral costly
Army
in mid-July to seize the
attempts by Bradley's First
to escape the
bocage and swamps
divisions.
Cobra immediately altered the entire
American ground forces
Normandy, Lieutenant General Omar
mo-
exploit the
armored
Allied concept of tle
what had been
of attrition to drive
a bat-
Army Group B
from Normandy and east of the Seine.
The notion
river
of a decisive break-
out in the Cotentin and
a
pursuit
across the plains of southern Nor-
mandy was not
part of the Allied blue-
print for the campaign; the plan for the Allied
advance had been,
of the Cotentin, only exacerbated the al-
gantic swinging door hinged on Caen
ready mounting anxiety within the Al-
and sweeping slowly and deliberately
lied
high command.
With Patton and awaiting
The Canadian 3rd Division
in effect, a gi-
halts near Haute-Mesnil,
fe. £gen^Pataise road, August 14. After
in
repeated failures to take their assigned
an arc toward the Seine. his Third
official activation
Army
on August
1,
Although
it
'
on the
otjectives
took three days too long
on schedule, the Canadian arm§ on August 16.
>ved into Falaise
for the Allied leadership to scrap its
outmoded master plan
to take
Bradley devised an operation, code-
abruptly
named Cobra, that employed massive aerial carpet bombing to blast open a
advantage of Cobra's success, Bradley finally acted to
make
official
what
Pat-
Seine through the least-defended region of Normandy, the Orleans gap.
was hoped
ton had already begun to orchestrate: a
the U.S. VII Corps could finally break
swing to the east by the Third Army.
Hitler believed the outcome of the Normandy campaign would decide the
out from the confining hedgerow coun-
Patton was ordered to leave the VIII
destiny of Germany. Without consulting
west of Saint-L6. Cobra began badly,
Corps to secure Brittany, while the
Rommel's successor.
corridor through which
try
it
when a calamitous error by Allied bombers
killed 111
American
soldiers
other three corps of the Third
Army
turned eastward to drive toward the
Field Marshal
Giinther von Kluge, he
most
made one
Hans of the
colossally stupid decisions of the
^^W^:-,\
'^m^ !,
'
i
>'
'^P*-
"«»
war:
He
directed an immediate, powerful
iW
•-'
stand of the U.S. 30th Division at Hill
armored counterattack between Mortain
317, which the VII Corps
and Avranches.
Major General
Its
object was to recap-
J.
Lawton
commander.
Collins, called
ture the neck of the Cotentin Peninsula
"one of the outstanding small-unit ac-
and cut
tions of
off all U.S. forces
Avranches and
south of
in Brittany.
The German attack on August 6-7 was repulsed
at
Mortain by the heroic
World War
II."
Instead of split-
ting the U.S. First and Third armies, Hitler's
enth
blunder
left
the
German
Army and elements
Sev-
of the Fifth
Panzer Army exposed and
in
danger of
being encircled.
On August Totalize, a
7,
Montgomery launched
major offensive by Lieutenant
General H.D.G. Crerar's Canadian First
Army
to capture Falaise, while Lieu-
tenant General Miles Dempsey's British
Second Army swept the bocage on
their
MHQ 59
U.S. infantrymen
march
cheerfully near Avranches. The wire
mesh covering the abandoned German truck would have been
threaded with fresh foliage every morning, in an effort to camouflage the vehicle from the swarming Allied fighter-bombers. right flank. Together the two armies
than once
would pivot
destroy an entire hostile army.
and drive
to their left
east.
way from here
We're about to .
.
.
We'll
German
to
punch through
to this key
town
were unsuccessful.
Time was
Meanwhile, the U.S. First and Third
go
armies would thrust across the open
border." Eisenhower enthusiastically
be sprung successfully, and the Canadi-
southern flank and trap the Fifth Panzer
endorsed Bradley's change of plan,
ans were clearly in serious trouble;
Army and Seventh Army
which would
in a
double en-
velopment along the Seine. This became the so-called long envelopment.
Mortain suddenly changed the think-
all
the
to the
spawn one
critical
if
the trap were to
of the
Montgomery's optimism was unfound-
Bradley then phoned Montgomery to
ed. He could have influenced the outcome of Totalize by immediately rein-
obtain his concurrence. Argentan,
forcing the Canadians with a division
later
great controversies of the war.
ing of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Haislip's objective,
was some twelve
from the Second Army, which was pro-
and Bradley. Wade Haislip's XV Corps
miles inside the British boundary, but
gressing through the bocage with rela-
was spearheading the Third Army drive
as Bradley later remarked,
east
and was already outside Le Mans.
Bradley reasoned that ly
swing the
mans
XV
Allies
if
he could quick-
Corps behind the Ger-
pily forgave
"Monty hap-
us our trespasses and wel-
comed the penetration." Even as he gave permission
tive ease in a series of
secondary attacks
between the Orne River and British 7th
Vire.
The
Armored Division was the
for
formation that he could have shifted to
Alengon and
Bradley to violate the interarmy group
the Falaise front most easily. That
hook," the
boundary, Montgomery was confident
Montgomery
failed to do so likely
might be able to annihilate the
that the Canadians could close the
stemmed from
the fact that he deeply
pocket be-
pocket at Argentan before the Ameri-
mistrusted his
own
the Canadians
cans got there. Although the Canadians
cause of their consistently poor perfor-
in the direction of
Argentan, in a "short
Seventh Army trapped
tween the
[left]
in the
XV Corps and
advancing toward Falaise. As an exultant Bradley told visiting
were nearly halfway to Falaise by August
9,
German
resistance was savage,
mance
in
"Desert Rats" be-
Normandy. Another option,
dropping two British airborne divisions
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
and the offensive soon slowed
to a
behind the German lines near Falaise
Morgenthau,
crawl. Like the earlier protracted,
to break the screen of deadly 88s hold-
bloody battle for Caen, renewed attacks
ing up the Canadian advance, was pro-
that
60
in a century.
comes
it
to a
Henry was "an opportunity commander not more
posed several days later by Bradley;
Third Army's exploits
Montgomery turned him down.
later failed to
The Canadians remained of Falaise.
the
By the evening
XV Corps had
north
stalled
of
August
12,
taken Alengon and
strongest assets of the U.S.
now
only eighteen miles wide. With the Ger-
mans holding
own
their
at Falaise,
Montgomery expected General Heinrich Eberbach's Fifth Panzer
Army
(called
Panzer Group West until August react furiously to hold
5) to
open the south-
ern perimeter of the gap until the Ger-
mans could make good
their escape.
He
continued to press the Canadians to capture Falaise and drive
on
to Argentan.
Montgomery's misjudgment resulted at least partly
from the repeated
of the British
commanders, with
penchant
Army
to
under con-
ditions of mobile warfare. The disas,
trous American baptism of
fire in
made
manded
and
a crucial,
much-criticized, decision:
later
He counter-
XV Corps
Patton, ordering the
to halt at Argentan. Patton
begged to
even as Kluge was pleading with Hit-
Argentan. Shall we continue and drive
continuing the Mortain coun-
the British into the sea for another
ler that
was hopeless. As
teroffensive
British his-
torian
Max Hastings has
late as
8 or 9 August, Kluge could readi-
observed, "As
have executed the only sane move-
ment open
"We now have elements
half in jest:
Dunkirk?" The British, who soon learned of Patton's
flip
remark, were
not amused.
Bradley would not relent. He later
defended his decision by arguing that
guard.
he was fearful of a deadly collision with
sacrificial rear
Hitler,
and Hitler alone, closed
tion to
him and presented
this op-
the Allies with
the Canadians, and solid shoulder at bility of a
also insisted,
around Mortain on still
XV
no
this date,
"much
at Falaise."
He
"To have driven pell-mell
Montgomery's
into
preferred a
Argentan to the possi-
broken neck
their extraordinary opportunity." Thus,
although the Germans began to shorten
As the
in
to him, a withdrawal to the
Seine covered by a
there was
decisively
Bradley learned of Patton's in-
be allowed to continue north, saying
11,
ly
When
tentions, he
Montgomery's decision not to rewas made August
their line
and
abili-
inforce the Canadians
their
rapidly
a
improvise on the battlefield.
for the set-piece battle, to
perceive the ability of the U.S.
move
failure
Army were
mastery of mobile warfare and the ty to
Sees and was prepared to drive north with four divisions to close the gap,
Normandy
in
convince them that the
line of
advance
could easily have resulted in a disas-
retreat eastward.
Corps drove north toward
trous error in recognition. In halting did not
Argentan, Haislip reported to Patton that
Patton at Argentan, however,
he was close to capturing his
consult with Montgomery. The decision
final as-
North
signed objective and that with additional
to stop Patton
I
"
was mine alone
On August
Germans had
at
up the shoulders
of
13, the
fresh in
forces he could effectively block the
;
their
memory. Although many Ameri-
east-west roads in his sector north of
last
[
can units had landed in Normandy
Alen^on. The Canadians remained well
the pocket, but three
untested in battle, two months of
al-
north of Falaise, making frustratingly
before the
most constant combat had changed
slow progress. Patton foresaw that they
their withdrawal to the east in a desper-
i
)
l
Africa in early 1943
was
stil!
The British leaders also disparability, and even the
(
that.
i
aged Patton's
begun
to build
more days elapsed
Germans began organizing
On
the
ate bid to escape the Allied trap.
night of August 12, he directed the
XV
withdrew, they were pounded unmerci-
could not close the gap quickly.
Corps to capture Argentan and then carefully
push north toward
Falaise.
fully
from the
Allied guns.
air
As they
and by hundreds of
The devastation was ap-
In Lonlay I'Abbaye, east of Mortain, a statue of
a World War I poilu welcomes an American
tank destroyer in pursuit of the Germans on
August 16. The speed of the advance has spared the town any battle damage.
ed a convoy of ambulances whose medical
commander demanded
through
for
to be let
humanitarian reasons.
When Currie opened the doors he German wounded "piled in like wood.
told the doctor that
I
tal.
He
he had
to
and to our hospi-
enough gas
didn't have
ambulances
commanders:
above
left,
Collins, er,
Despite mounting tank and anti-
tank losses, 700
Eisenhow-
German
wounded another
some 300 500, and
able to seize the bridges, but without
still
held
troops,
guns but had destroyed tanks, killed
Cobra; above right,
their
jacket, passes or-
other to dislodge Germans at-
and outnumbered
ders to his chief of
tempting
German
staff sometime in
charges to their hulls and tracks.
machine guns affix
to
one an-
at
explosive
Eventually the Canadians
back to nearby
ac-
an
Hill 117.
ly lost
which eventual-
every single officer except
commander. On the morning
its
of the third day (Sunday,
of the
the Falaise Gap."
The Canadians did not capture 16,
which
between the
American and Canadian armies. The
fe-
typified by the
wave
of
German
August
infantry
attempted to rush the Canadian positions on Hill 117, only to be
The Canadians had man-
Allied trap.
that included panzers and 88s and
of Allied ground
only to Eisenhower.
many more
Canadi-
support of Major Curries rapidly
forces, subordinate
force,
troops would have escaped the
aged to repel repeated counterattacks
artillery fired point-blank in
force,
the valiant stand of Currie's outgunned
fell
fox terrier,
great nightmares of military history in
mowed
down by Canadian machine guns.
In
helped funnel a great
many German
troops into the only remaining exit at
Chambois, the place that came
to be
known
—the
as the "Couloir de la Mort"
Corridor of Death. For his exceptional
leadership at Saint-Lambert, Major
Currie became the
first
win the Victoria Cross
in
Canadian to
Normandy.
The pocket was officially sealed on August 19, when the Polish 1st Ar-
Saint-Lambert a Canadian patrol was
mored
suddenly ambushed and disarmed by
sion joined forces at Chambois. But
400 troops of the 12th SS Panzer
Divi-
heavy fighting continued for several
disappeared into the gap,
in-
more days. In one instance, a column of some 3,000 vehicles was destroyed. In all, of the nearly 80,000 German sol-
and armor descended upon Saint-
diers originally trapped in the Falaise
sion,
who
leaving the Canadians
unharmed.
Throughout that Sunday, German
Division and the U.S. 90th Divi-
experience of a small Canadian tank
fantry
and infantry task force commanded by
Lambert and were
Major D.V. Currie that was sent to
Allied artillery.
However, as one of the
estimated 50,000 were taken prisoner.
Saint-Lambert-sur-Dives to capture the
few existing accounts of this action
Most German units simply disappeared,
three vital bridges over the Dives: By
notes, "the fantastic traffic over the
as troops fled individually
bridge could not be stopped that day.
groups toward the Seine. Of the
doing
so, the
Canadians would have
was
relentlessly shelled by
It
pocket,
some 10,000 perished and an
in
through which the whole pocket was deflated." The battle
Saint-Lambert the evening of August
raged into the fourth day, with the
The scope
Canadians once again attacking the
starkly visible
blocked the retreat of the
German
Sev-
enth Army. Currie's force arrived 18 and found
through the fore
62
seven
Patton, in a leather
German army endured "one
MHQ
pelled antitank
taken 2,100 POWs. They had been un-
As Max Hastings has noted, the
was
task force had lost
nine Shermans and twelve self-pro-
the vital bridges. At one point
20), a
rocity of the battles
by the Canadian 3rd
little
the Canadian tanks began firing
on August
.
fore Operation
was commander in chief dwindling
a fifteen-mile gap
.
day, but the
companied by his
Falaise until late
Germans
.
right."
confer bleakly be-
Montgomery,
still left
German POWs
had been taken by the following
and Bradley
late August; left,
palling.
finally relieved
Division. His
Generals
we were
Monday afternoon Major Currie
Late
Allied
in the
go anywhere else
[and] finally decided that
was
cord-
he were
if
really interested in saving lives,
better go to our lines
found
it
German
troops swarming
village, fleeing the
gap be-
closed for good. The Canadians
like a valve
bridges. Saint-Lambert itself
was
neral pyre of burning wreckage
a fu-
and dead
About 800 German troops sur-
immediately became heavily embroiled
bodies.
with German armor and antitank guns.
rendered to Currie's force. They includ-
and
in small fifty di-
visions in action in June, only ten could
now even
be called fighting units. of the
German
around the
defeat
was
villages of
Trun, Saint-Lambert, and Chambois,
which were ies,
littered
with unburied bod-
thousands of dead horses and
cattle,
and smashed and burning vehicles.
It
.
was one of the most appalling scenes of the war. The powerful stench reached
hundreds of
feet in the air to sicken the
A
pilots of Allied spotter planes.
account describes
it
In the hot August sun
.
.
there was no dig-
.
bombarded areas
nity of death. In the worst
fragments of bodies festooned the
Some
British
this way:
trees.
.
.
roads were impassable due to the
congestion caused by burnt-out trucks, dead horses, smashed tanks and destruction
on
which the Western
a scale
Allies
had
never seen.
German
disarray was typified by the
example of the British XII Corps, which took prisoners from thirteen different divisions southeast of Falaise.
Eisenhower described
as
it
unques-
tionably one of the worst "killing grounds" of the war. "Forty-eight hours gap
after the closing of the
ducted through
it
on
I
foot, to
was con-
It
was
literally possible to
hundreds of yards
for
walk
at a time, step-
ping on nothing but dead and decaying
Montgomery
flesh." in the
called the carnage
Trun area "almost unbelievable."
The
fate that befell the
it,
division, or rather
was
a
shambles.
what was
Its
Kurt Meyer, was alone,
of
left
commander, filthy,
weary,
and on foot when he escaped from the pocket. Meyer, his courage
he
left
who was renowned
and fanaticism,
for
later said
my
face,
my
clothes soaked in perspiration." Others, like
Lieutenant Walter Kruger, walked
for days as part of a chaotic,
endless line of survivors,
whom
cles;
seemingly
many
of
dropped from exhaustion. In
the Allies had taken 133,000 prisoners
since Cobra. Both the American and
— in
and
over 9,000
British official histories later concluded
has been estimated that fewer
that the Allies had captured about
than 120 armored fighting vehicles
50,000 Germans in the battle of the
made
Falaise pocket.
sonnel carriers items.
It
it
all,
across the Seine.
Despite the earlier stalemate, the
campaign
in
Normandy succeeded
beyond the expectations of
its
far
archi-
But with success came a legacy of
tects.
What Churchill and others comprehend was
man
divisions
imated
in the
had
all
been severely dec-
grueling battles fought
since D-Day, and few of their losses had
Argentan-
been replaced. Each panzer division
a great triumph
had entered Normandy averaging 160
about the battle Falaise pocket.
in the
Was
it
tanks and 173 assault guns, antitank
enormous blunder?
or an
Churchill was the
what he perceived
as
first to
question
an excessively low
German POWs. "I had, rather hoped we should be
guns, and artillery pieces. By August 25,
all
the
German
divisions
reduced to a combined
in
and assault guns and only a handful of
the region of hundreds of thousands
understrength infantry and panzer
menMontgomery, who
grenadier battalions. Six of the panzer
course,
when
of
sixteen divisions were
tioned," he cabled
divisions
total of
had no
artillery at all.
dispute over the figure
There
men and
ground forces had taken 133,000 Ger-
of 10,000
man POWs, killed 23,000, and wounded 100,000, making the total 256,000
uncertainty remains about
enemy
cape the pocket. As the U.S.
had barely 300 men, 10 tanks, and no artillery.
The survivors
of the battle
were a beaten, disconsolate army
in
"written
off."
However,
it
was
far
too early to gain even an approximation
complete disarray. Allied investigating teams later
of
German
losses in the Falaise pocket
teams could
German
72 tanks
is little
replied that, since July 25, Allied
it
had been
of
number
June the division had nearly 20,000 139 tanks; after Normandy
failed to
that the sixteen Ger-
controversy and unanswered questions
with "my knees trembling, the
sweat pouring down
staff vehi-
over 150 armored cars and per-
vehicles, civilian cars,
once proud
12th SS Panzer Division was typical.
The
leading to the three usable crossings over the Dives River became
encounter
scenes that could be described only by Dante.
Jammed roads
part of the "Corridor of Death, " as the Allies massacred shattered German units.
German
dead.
troops actually
The greatest
how many
managed
to es-
official his-
tory records, even before the
Germans
began their retreat from the pocket some nonessential personnel and
found a staggering array of equipment
until Allied investigation
on the
over 500 tanks
complete a rough count. Montgomery's
equipment had already been moved
and self-propelled guns; more than 700
extravagant estimate only fueled the
ward the Seine. According
almost 7,500 military
controversy, especially his claim that
tary historian Martin
battlefield: well
artillery pieces;
to-
to the mili-
Blumenson,
MHQ 63
number
In addition to failing to reveal that ex-
tensive precautions had been taken to
gentan shoulder temporarily with
20,000 and 40,000 men. ... The aver-
prevent such a tragic head-on meeting,
smaller force. Bradley later related that
age combat strength of divisions was no
Bradley also ignored the fact that
the choice was not as simple as hind-
more than
a few
pocket was ever to be closed, the U.S.
though the
overall strength of
came
some
di-
Army and
the Canadian First
three [options], the dash to the Seine
Patton were to secure a bridgehead there, he
tan-Falaise gap he could have done so
would have thwarted the enemy's
without opposition from Montgomery.
chance
let slip
from
not only of bagging the entire rem-
Army Group
B, but the greater
Bradley's contention that he lacked
authority to send the
XV
Corps north of
absurd. Not only was
psychological victory of forcing a for-
Argentan
mal surrender and perhaps of ending
ready well beyond the
the war sooner. The responsibility for
meaningless interarmy group bound-
the failure
—
if it
was a
failure
—
to close
the pocket has been the subject of an endless postwar debate.
Though Bradley took
respon-
full
halting Patton at Argentan,
sibility for
he nevertheless blamed Montgomery for failing to close the gap.
As he com-
plained in his 1951 memoirs,
A
Sol-
ary,
but
is
Montgomery had
now
it
al-
rather
already given
leak at Falaise,
Monty proceeded
farther to the north."
gomery
go [any]
to
And
if
Third
Army
Army
enemy
to es-
of the enemy's
Was
army
is
the
first
objective of
a Seine River bridgehead im-
that military tenet?
American
did not sanction an
force.
Bradley thought so, for he records,
"George helped
Bradley propose
on August 14 he
it."
failure to re-
critical
period of the battle for Falaise
remains inexplicable, there
is
ample
ev-
settle
my
doubts
when
called to ask that
of Haislip's four divisions
two
on the Argen-
tan shoulder be freed for a dash to the Seine. With that,
brushed aside the
I
two alternatives and sided with
first
Patton on the third."
Bradley's decision plainly suited
preferred the long envelopment to the
Montgomery, who observed
headquarters] where a shocked
Seine to ensure that a blocking force
war, "The battle of the Falaise pocket
Army
never should have taken place and was
looked on helplessly as
certain
is
easier for the
Lucky Forward
at
its
quarry
Patton raged at Montgomery's blunder.
What August
it
cape that Falaise trap. Normally, destruction
advance beyond Argentan, neither did
idence that he was fully committed to
hower even more. And [Third
Seine in preference to the Chambois attack,
we might make
"Mont-
closing the gap. Nevertheless, he clearly
If
But by the same token, we would also be taking a chance. For in striking out for the
portant enough to warrant our rejecting
notes, "Bradley needed
Monty's
the Seine.
bright
for defense of the Seine River line.
Blumenson
Montgomery's permission
me, they dismayed Eisen-
enemy out toward
tactics mystified
to squeeze
last
if
any
inforce Crerar's Canadians during the
Rather than close the trap by capping the
ail
permission to advance to Argentan. As
Although Montgomery's
dier's Story:
14,
is
that until at least
both Montgomery and
would prevent the mass escape
—
of
after the
if
not meant to take place." Mont-
the pocket could not be closed. Bradley
gomery's point was that the short en-
Group B from Normandy
especially
obviously shared the same concern.
never wavered
He
in his assertion that
velopment was not fit
in
his idea,
with his concept of the
September 1944, when
nor did
it
battle. In
Bradley were committed to the plan to
Montgomery had nothing
close the trap between Argentan and
his decision to halt Patton at Argentan.
spondent asked Patton
The decision "was mine and mine
circlement had been part of the original
Falaise. Bradley's
argument that
and Canadian forces should not
U.S.
risk
an
alone. ...
I
was determined
to
do with
to hold Pat-
is
illogical, as is his
ton at Argentan and had no cause to
tion,
suggestion that the
XV Corps had been
ask Monty to shift the boundary."
eral Bradley.
was
halted because the Allied air forces had
Bradley's decision
sown the highways in the area with time bombs, thus making movement
by Eisenhower.
northward
ers felt that a long
risky. In fact, the
bombs,
supported
fully
command-
envelopment
still
a
war corre-
the Falaise en-
east
he replied: "Improvisation by GenI
and he told
By August
Thus, by August 14, both
if
Overlord master plan or an improvisa-
accidental collision
thought we were going
me
14,
to
when
move it
north."
was clear that
the Argentan-Falaise pocket would not
be closed,
Montgomery exhorted
dropped over a three-day period, had
held promise. Bradley had three alter-
Crerar to seal the only remaining cor-
only twelve-hour delay fuses, a fact
natives:
He could move beyond Argen-
ridor of escape, a narrowing gap be-
that the airmen could easily have con-
tan toward Falaise (an option he firmly
tween Trun and Chambois. In so doing,
firmed. Equally suspect
ruled out); he could
gument
is
Bradley's ar-
that he was reluctant to
sit
tight
where he
two converging armies, as we might
was until reinforced by units of the Third and First armies moving east from the Avranches-Mortain sector
have done had Patton continued on
(never seriously considered); or he
to Falaise."
could quickly strike east toward the
"chance a head-on meeting between
64
Of
Bradley had wanted to close the Argen-
nants of
fled,
might suggest:
lingering doubts that despite their
great victory the Allies had
the
sight
Army offered the greatest tactical promise. For
their grasp an even greater opportunity,
Third
the
if
eventually had to meet. Where they met was irrelevant. The truth is that if
close to 3,000."
Whatever the left
hundred men, even
a
figures, the aftermath
visions
MHQ
Seine, while continuing to hold the Ar-
of
Germans escaping varied between
"Later estimates of the total
he signaled his growing belief that the
gap could
still
be plugged farther east
while Patton was making his end run to the Seine.
That same day, Montgomery wrote optimistically to his friend Sir
James Grigg,
A
Polish
Battlefield Major General Stanislaw Maczek's Polish 1st Armored
Division was composed of
determined volun-
fiercely
who had
teers
fled their
homeland in 1939. The Armored was assigned to Canadian First Army.
1st
the
On Au-
gust 17, General Bernard
Montgomery ordered
it
to
help spearhead a drive to close the Falaise gap at
Chambois. The Poles considered
a high honor and re-
it
sponded with
alacrity
seldom
seen in Allied combat units.
On
the morning of August
18, a Polish task force of
A British-built Cromwell tank of the Polish 1st Armored Division maneuvers past a enemy Panther as it advances to the front in late July.
disabled
two
tank battalions, two infantry
way, leaving a string of burn-
droves, their corpses drifted
on August 21, they were
res-
and an antitank
ing vehicles, clouds of bil-
down
cued by Canadian troops
dri-
lowing black smoke, and
country lanes
and
hundreds of dead Germans
become forever known
a ridge
strewn everywhere, many
"the Corridor of Death."
battalions,
group
— numbering a
total
of 1,500 infantrymen eighty tanks
—seized
ground
of high
in the hills
east of Chambois, called Mount Ormel and identified as Hill 262 on the map. Maczek dubbed it "the Mace." Long and narrow, it
ended
in a
bulbous macelike
the Dives and choked
The
what would
in
ving east from Chambois.
The astonished Canadians
as
could only marvel at
how
Mace
the Poles had held out
raged for three days. The 2nd
against elements of thirteen
SS Panzer Division, which had already escaped the
divisions
sion of furious counter-
pocket, was rushed back to
They had
attacks, eventually surround-
attack the Poles. By the
they had prevented hun-
Mount
night of August 20, the Po-
horribly mangled.
With the sealed
last
the
off,
now Germans
road
struck back with a succes-
ing the Poles on
battle for the
—
six panzer,
one
parachute, and six infantry. lost
325
killed.
But
dreds, perhaps even thou-
Dives River as well
Some German troops desperately stormed the
pressed back to the top of
highway from the
steep slopes in suicidal as-
the
open, the D-16
saults, while others attacked
ate straits.
Not only had they
touching tribute, Canadian
secondary road from Cham-
along both ends of the D-16.
suffered heavy losses but
engineers erected a sign on
bois to Vimoutiers. The
Thousands ran a gauntlet of
they were nearly out of
the
Poles immediately encoun-
fire
tered and attacked a large
Allied air
head that dominated the ley of the
as the only
pocket
still
enemy column on
val-
this high-
Ormel.
from the Mace and from
and artillery bombardments. Cut down in
the secretary of state for war: "These are great days. ...
We
have the great bulk of
week
in
lish
survivors had been
Mace and were
ammuni-
water, food, and tion.
As they faced yet anoth-
er suicide attack at
August 1944. The expression
"Falaise gap"
is
a postwar creation of the
German forces partially surrounded; some will of course escape, but I do not see how they can stand and fight seriously
gomery's liaison officer to Bradley,
again this side of the Seine."
'Falaise Gap'.
the
In this age of conspiracy theories historical
"what
ifs,"
there
is
no better
example than the seemingly endless
dis-
who was "at fault" for the demade during a single, crucial
cussion of cisions
and
media. As Major
notes, "It
was not It
Tom
Bigland, Mont-
called the battle of the
was only one of the mat-
which were being considered. there was a great deal of the 'fog of ters
tle' at
in desper-
.
.
.
bat-
that time."
The postwar controversy might well have died had not Bradley fueled the
sands, of
Germans from
flee-
German losswere enormous. In a
ing the pocket. es
pinnacle
of
Mount
Ormel, which read simply: "A Polish Battlefield."
—CD.
midday
flames by publicly second-guessing his
own
Army to He blamed Montgomery and
decision to send the Third
the Seine.
faulty intelligence. "To this day
yet certain that
I
am
not
we should not have
postponed our advance to the Seine and
gone on to Chambois instead," he wrote in
A
Soldier's Story. "For although the
bridgehead accelerated our advance,
Chambois would have yielded more prisoners."
MHQ 65
— wiF^fsmmmsmmaimm^BBimamamemwammKmti^^m^^t^^^Km^
Bradley candidly admitted this "was
had we not been misled by intelligence we would have held Haislip
not only a poor decision but a distinct-
solidly in place
More
ly
recently, in
dangerous one."
on the basis
A General's
had been made
It
of [Ultra] intelligence,
which estimated that
man
Life,
a full-scale Ger-
retreat to the east had already
begun and that
number of German "Unknown to us, of German forces were a
divisions had escaped.
the major share still
inside the pocket,
to encirclement.
66
still
vulnerable
Had we known
this
—
line to
sack.
hold the southern edge of the
"We would probably have then
on the Argentan shoul-
requested that Monty pull the bound-
der and most likely would have sent
ary back so that our forces could ad-
[Walton] Walker directly north on
vance on Falaise to link up with Crerar
Haislip's right flank
toward Chambois,
Bradley believes cation lip's
—that
XV
—with some
justifi-
Collins's VII Corps, Hais-
Corps, and Walker's
(totaling eleven divisions)
and Dempsey, probably on August
Had
to help close the gap."
XX
Corps
would have
formed a firm front on an east-west
this
16.
been done, we would have
trapped most of the
German
force in-
side the pocket." Instead, Bradley notes, he
left
behind a gravely weak-
ened southern shoulder
when
it
at a
moment
was the most vulnerable. For-
RAF Typhoons attack
Rocket-firing
the
enemy
fighter and reconnaissance
disordered Germans. Vehicles on the
planes were in the
ground were
Seine would have been impossible
hit repeatedly until fliers
could see at a glance that they were
enemy's
out of action.
sites
most
of their heavy
weapons and
illogical to expect that in the
army group
retreated eastward in disarray.
could have been bagged in toto. This
The most compelling evidence
of Al-
success consists of the assessments
of
many
al
Hans Speidel declared, "There were
German
senior
Gener-
officers.
barely a hundred tanks
out of six
left
of eleven in-
Max Hastings
has observed, "Far too
much
when
armored
All
divi-
replenished with personnel
five
regi-
or six tanks and a
of a deci-
its
critics of
the fact that by escaping through the
their
Bradley had not tried to have his cake
a gauntlet of fire that stretched virtual-
and eat
from Mortain to the Seine. air attacks
took a fearful
critics
it
by carrying out both a long
Artillery
and short envelopment, and instead
of the
opted for only one. To what extent will
toll
never be more than conjecture.
tend to overlook
XV Corps between Argentan and
reinforcements, the ability of Haislip's
the short
XV Corps
greater success. However, had the long
to keep the gap north of Arat best suspect.
De-
crushing Allied superiority, the in the pocket
were
still
a dan-
German
reaction at
Mount Ormel,
where the Poles blocked the only route of escape left
Chambois
open between Trun and
(the Corridor of Death), of-
there
more
envelopment been
have been even more spectacular.
The
Falaise gap
this reason alone,
on
continue to be
us that no battle can be fully under-
Falaise gap? Certainly, the role
and
re-
sponsibility of the Allied air forces have
yet to be seriously examined.
The chief
side of the hill."
The
man
evident in the pho-
defeat
is
forces at a critical
moment. "Only
a few
totality of the Ger-
tographs of the death and destruction
mented
left
will
stood unless viewed from "the other
German retreat across the Seine was made easier by the absence of Allied air
Panzer Army. They
it
to be learned about the
escaped across the Seine were the rem-
Fifth
where perfect
success was theoretically possible: for
wrought by the
and the
was one of the few
battles of military history
of staff of a panzer corps noted that the
Army
and
the Seine crossings, the results might
who
nants of the shattered Seventh
initiated earlier
had more attention been paid to seizing
debated. Basil Liddell Hart has taught
Corps would have faced. Is
Falaise,
hook would have promised
what the XV
fers stark affirmation of
Yet the only troops
If
Bradley had aggressively reinforced the
another crucial factor: Without major
cidal
lied blunder.
effective execution."
More than likely, the Allies would have been even more successful if
Argentan-Falaise gap, the Germans ran
Germans
has triggered the notion of a great Al-
upon the
making
sion ensured
"What
of the
Gap and other Normandy
the Falaise
Blumenson
sometimes overlook
self-evident
battles has focussed solely if
notes,
seems
controversy and criticism surrounding
generals, as
gerous fighting force. The frenzied, sui-
between 20,000 and
in retrospect,
few artillery batteries." Moreover, as
spite
troops eluded the trap
some armchair strategists have claimed.
fog of battle. Moreover, as
gentan closed was
fact that
The
guns and other minor equipment.
Moreover,
German
defense.
skill in
What,
and
40,000
German
was, at the time, part of the inevitable
withdrawing enemy troops."
and the
rugged region of Normandy, well suited
four units, each with a handful of field
ly
of the war,
Sixth Army, but a se-
fantry divisions allowed us to regroup
is
gap was one
German
the great tactical blunder that
Bradley's decision
battle of the Falaise
the
"Five decimated divisions returned to
ments, each with
most dramatic events
late
ries of desperate battles across a sizable,
Argentan-Falaise gap was simply never
and materiel amounted to eleven
The
was not Stalingrad, where the Red Army was able to surround and annihi-
Field Marshal Walther Model, reported:
sions
of the
troops
to the
that remained of eleven
attack at this time.
German
of veteran
panzer divisions." Kluge's successor,
Germany. The remains
was no further counter-
chaos of mid-August 1944 an entire
armor remained behind. The survivors
lied
tunately, there
the
if
had kept the ferrying
air forces
under constant observation."
It is
foot;
Crossing of the
air.
Allies,
and
in the tor-
faces of the survivors.
War may
appear as neat and tidy lines on battle
maps, but
its
reality
is
chaotic,
and no
MHQ 67
The map at right shows how ritory the Allies
little ter-
—bogged down by
marshland, hedgerows, and deter-
mined German
resistance
—gained in
the first seven weeks after
key 10),
city
of Caen did not
D-Day
fall until
(the
July
and by contrast how much they
gained Paris
—including the liberation of
—in one month after launching
Operation Cobra on July 25. As they freed city after city in northern France (except for three in Brittany that held
THE
FALAISE
POCKET
•^^^^^"*
August 6-21, 1944
German
Counterattack, Aug. 6-7
German
Front, Aug. 16
Allied Attacks, Aug.
German-Held
German
out for months), the other D-Day be-
gan along the French Riviera
Aug. 20-21
treat along the Rhone, with the Allies
To Le MansV lOB^ngon
in battle fought in the
West was more
sav-
Falaise gap.
was only one person therefore return to the
man commanders who Falaise, Trun,
Chambois, and Mount
Ormel had brought about the dismem-
berment
of
Army Group
B.
Twenty
years later, Kurt Meyer said, "It was
useless.
What
crass folly."
And
Thousands of German prisoners fiercely
to
blame
for this
stupid, impossible operation. That
man
mad-
or
all
that
hot
—albeit not very successful—
pursuit. The
Germans managed one
brief counteroffensive in the north,
against Mortain on August 6-7 (see detail at left), but it quickly failed.
Though the remnants of two German
Adolf Hitler."
armies were nearly trapped in the
never forgot
that the battles fought at Mortain,
68
Sepp Dietrich, declared: "There
fiihrer
angry observations of the defeated Ger-
MHQ
most ardent of Nazis, Obergruppen-
age and untidy than the battle of the
We must
mid-
and Toulon were on the verge of falling, and the Germans were in full re-
17-19
Areas, Aug. 19
Flight,
in
August. Eleven days later, Marseilles
Carlo D'Este
is
a former
army
and the author of Decision
officer
in
Nor-
shrinking Falaise pocket, the Canadians, slowly advancing south,
and the
mandy, Bitter Victory, and Fatal Decision: Anzio and the Battle for
Americans, moving north from Alen-
Rome. He
fierce fighting
is
completing a biography of
General George
war wait for rations
in a
S. Patton, Jr.
gon, could not quite close the gap. In
Chambois,
around St.-Lambert and
many Germans got away.
temporary camp near Nonat Le Pin, August 21. Only the most
determined Germans had escaped, but they established a hard core around which units were rebuilt to fight on.
2
THE NORMANDY BREAKOUT AND OPERATION DRAGOON
UNITED
June 6-August 26, 1944
KINGDOM
Germany, Cicrtnan-Controlled I
Amsterdam^
I
Arnhem
Territory
X_^
Allied
^^1 I
I
I
I
THE
NETHERLANDS
,,
The Hague
Nijmegen.
Advances (simplified)
Allied Front Line,
June
1
London
.Allied
Front Line, July 25
Under
Allied Control, August
26
^Portsmouth Plymouth Lof Wight
\^
G
L
I
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^ u A NNE H Crt^
L Cherbourg ^'.'""''^
Channel
^
/Jll\ ^ /'Jj^r.
-•-.^^^*„,«-»^ _a6.„
Islands
Coutances
(July 28)
,^
-
j
St-Malo (Aug. 17)
-^
;
\
\;vire
'
^ . cha^bois
^Vanches^.A^^"*^"
^
-""^(July^
/
Rennes .
,
Lorient
(Aug. 4)" ^
^^^^•(Aug.5) (-,.
°o
St-Nazaire
aV,
^
Nantes (Aug. 10)
Bordeaux
Nimes Montpellier
Carcassonne Marseille
(A^9-28)
Toulon
Hy6r6S
MEDITERRANEAN
SPAIN
SEA
French
I.
Commandos
28)J
Andorra
^
»Pon TCros
(Aug.
U.S.
Commandos
OPERATION
DRAGOON (August 15)
—
[he other D-day —
Most people think of the Riviera invasion in August if they think of it at all as a walkover. It wasn't, and we let most of a German army get away,
—
by
WM
Sterne Randall
months and a week after DDay in Normandy, Operation
Two
Dragoon, phase two of the
libera-
tion of France, began. For the entire
immense
day of August 14, 1944, an the largest ever to
fleet,
sail
the Mediterranean, assembled off Corsi-
2,000 warships
ca:
— including
aircraft
Overlord, Lieutenant General Sir Fred-
1944. But the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff
erick Morgan, argued that the only
wanted an amphibious landing
also
100,000
craft
sailors.
Speeding among the stately capital ships, twin halyards of signal flags flap-
ping, the British destroyer carried a
on
its
Kimberley
crowd of high-ranking
bridge. As
officers
passed a cluster of
it
lord by draining off
to assist Over-
German
forces op-
were to be
to maintain pressure
Two
The troops, part
of Lieu-
Italian front
the Allies talked mostly of Overlord,
now given for
Then the
the Riviera beachhead.
to be secured by strong
Italy
feasible,
leaguered in the Soviet Union, had been unable to attend the Allied sum-
if
mit conferences. Now, with his armies
the limits of available shipping.
At
first
the British, considering the
if it
fact,
iffy
priority and scheduled May 1944. For two years, Joseph Stalin, be-
and by sea within
reinforcements, overland
from northern
had already bogged down;
on the Germans,
make
beachhead was
Allied leaders con-
Teheran, fighting along the
while fourteen Allied divisions were to
and expecting the
operation to draw on fresh U.S. troops,
sized cigar.
at
but instead of buttressing forces there,
ognized a heavyset passenger
in ribbon-
cember 1943, when vened
fighting in Italy
left
plan to be highly
navy blue, chomping on an out-
forces
and Overlord simultaneously. By De-
and Toulon and
LSTs, GIs leaning over the railings rec-
less
down German
France to seize the major ports of Marseilles
divisions
soldiers and
to tie
southern France was to launch Anvil
in
posing the cross-Channel landings.
drop-ramp landing
way
possible
(originally called Anvil) in southern
destroyer escorts, minesweepers, tug-
crammed with 250,000
on the offensive ern Russia, he first
in central
left
and south-
his country for the
time to go to Teheran. In his
first
had not objected. In
face-to-face meeting with Churchill
they seemed pleased that Overlord
and FDR, Stalin promised a new offen-
came
off at all,
tenant General Alexander M. Patch's
and their Mediterranean operations
sive
Seventh Army, jostled for places along
were to be linked. Before the U.S. and
ingly supported an attack on the
the
rails, yelling,
"Winnie!
It's
Winnie!"
As British prime minister Winston
British
Combined Chiefs
left
Quebec,
timed with Overlord, but surpris-
French
Riviera.
The Soviet
idea, a great
they directed General Dwight D. Eisen-
pincer movement, ignored the fact that
his "V-for-Victory"
hower, supreme Allied commander
Normandy and
salute, the soldiers of the Third Divi-
serving in the Mediterranean, to submit
miles apart; but the Americans and
sion broke into their marching song,
a plan for Anvil.
British
Churchill gave
them
"The Dog-Face Soldier." They could not hear him grumble to a British admiral,
"These
my
men
don't realize that
way, they'd
all
if I'd
had
be heading in a com-
Churchill had been trying to prevent
Dragoon from taking place
Eisenhower, responding
for a full
began to see great merit
an
He could
Americans were relieved that the
land-
British did not once again bring up
ing craft for a feeble single-division as-
Churchill's "soft underbelly" theory,
enough
The Mediterranean
as a
whole
pushed since the ence
south of France cannot be logically
that notion
Furthermore,
itself."
the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec. As
"operations in
Italy, carefully
the Allies had gone on the offensive
with Overlord,
may prove more
timed valu-
at
in the
first
summit
confer-
Casablanca in December 1942;
had to be considered, he reported: "The
considered by
would have meant landings
Balkans and a
futile race
with
the Soviets for Vienna and Berlin.
By Christmas Eve 1943, Eisenhow-
mid-1943, Churchill and
able than a necessarily isolated and
er's staff
Franklin D. Roosevelt had decided that
small-scale operation against southern
division
in
in
invasion of the south of France. The
year since the Quadrant Conference at
everywhere
the Riviera were 500
October
in
1943, was unenthusiastic. spare from Overlord only
sault.
pletely different direction."
70
France." Yet the top British planner for
with Overlord scheduled for spring
carriers, troop transports, destroyers,
boats,
MHQ
the invasion of Italy would be next,
had unveiled
American
its
plan: a three-
assault, built
up by
Tracers illuminate the night sky, St.-
French second-wave forces to ten sions.
divi-
The target date was May, syn-
chronized with Overlord.
Italy
was
to be
mile strip of white sand, centered at
With Eisenhower home on leave
put on hold, the best American and
late
French units transferred
Dragoon broke
The target was the
to
Dragoon.
Riviera, a forty-five-
Tropez harbor, August 15, 1944. While paratroopers were dropped
Saint-Tropez. in
December, fresh infighting over out. Overlord planner
Morgan was joined by General Bernard
in-
land and men and materiel were amphibiously launched, a furious air raid
was unleashed along the
em French
entire south-
coast.
MHQ 71
Montgomery
in protesting that Dra-
goon now rated
as
many
assault divi-
sions as Overlord. Even Eisenhower aide Walter Bedell
Smith sided with
them: Overlord should be augmented the expense of Dragoon.
On January
at
31,
1944, the U.S. Joint Chiefs shifted their
ground. Overlord should be "closely
fought in World
War
Patch had dis-
I,
He
tinguished himself at Guadalcanal.
had been brought home by Marshall after charges that
he had inadvertently
revealed top-secret information about
mained firm where
Italy,
He
Dragoon done
work raced ahead
until
it
mine in the euphoric days after Normandy landings. Field Marshal Harold Alexander now urged an all-
"Once a
later stated,
sion was reached,
code breaking, but he had been cleared
Logistical
my
my
full
support, though
hit a
founded. Operation Dragoon portrayed in history books,
moved
quickly to
weaken Dragoon
fur-
memo,
they
February
ther. In a
4,
1944,
"We are not convinced most profitable use of this force would be against the south of France." Stiffening German resistance
Sir
out offensive through northern
Churchill's fine hand had once again
appeared.
It
was George
who made
however,
that the
ing argument: Since the
cam-
paign "with the utmost vigour." Such a strategy
would prevent the Germans
from reinforcing France lord landings.
after the Over-
Dragoon would be an un-
versy,
in the
middle of the contro-
Eisenhower queried
FDR and
U.S. Joint Chiefs in late February.
the Channel ports, Marshall would
troops until Marseilles and Toulon,
with the largest port
facilities in
France, were taken. There was the fur-
is
usually
at all, as a
"walk in the sun," in part because war correspondents were too busy trying to find Gertrude Stein
and Alice
what the
to take notice of
B. Toklas
Allies missed.
While Dragoon would prove a belated, costly,
triumph
would be
for the
French army,
if
it
a failure for the Americans.
For nearly four months. Allied planes
had raided southern France
until, in
the last two weeks, they were flying
ther consideration that the French,
1,000 sorties a day over targets pointed
who had
out to them by the French Resistance
raised half a million troops in
Africa, refused to take part in
venture not on their
the
They
Germans held
if
not release forty divisions of fresh
North
affordable "diversionary effort."
Caught
all
C. Marshall,
the most convinc-
stated their case:
dictated prosecuting the Italian
Italy:
it."
His misgivings would prove to be well
the effec-
had
I
best to constrain or deflect
lowed by a satisfactory supporting oper-
With the giant-pincer plan now
final deci-
of course, gave
I,
ation against the south of France."
tively dead, the British Chiefs of Staff
off to
were already
Allied troops
boarding transports.
of any misconduct.
fol-
—and Churchill flew
It
own
was not until June
Normandy, that the
any
final
6,
and recorded
in daily
photoreconnais-
sance flights. Massive raids battered
soil.
D-Day
in
go-ahead for
German
port and
rail facilities
and
knocked out bridges and gun emplace-
Dragoon should not be
the second D-Day, on August 15, was
ments from Montpellier and Avignon
canceled, merely postponed. Precious
given. Yet Churchill continued to lobby
south to Toulon and Nice.
landing craft were to be reallocated
against the Riviera landings.
visited
The softening up had begun April
to Overlord.
Eisenhower frequently, once arguing
28, with a B-25 attack on the sub-
replied that
In a schoolhouse outside Algiers,
General Patch took over the planning in early
March.
head famous liked to
wear
A
graceful six-foot red-
for the purple scarf at his throat, a
generation West Pointer
he
second-
who had
hours against Dragoon. Sum-
for six
moning a
He
Ike to 10
Downing
Street only
week before the Normandy
landings,
he threatened to "lay down the mantle of
my
high office" unless Eisenhower
aborted the Riviera campaign. Ike re-
marine base
major
at
Toulon. At Nice, the
rail link
between France and
there were raids every month,
Italy,
some causing heavy
civilian casualties.
The deadliest came on May
26. Allied
bombardiers, mistaking the small freight station of Riquier for the
SNCF
major
troop-transport center a few
miles away, flattened the Saint-Roch residential neighborhood, leaving
dead, 580
wounded
284
or missing, and
5,600 homeless. In mid-July, tled
319 B-24 bombers shut-
from bases around Naples
German rail and Some 421 British rail
yards at
to
pound
naval installations. Liberators pounded
Nimes near the mouth
of
the Rhone, knocking out five of six bridges,
ment
which made German reinforce-
difficult. In
the five days before
French and Ger-
D-Day on August
15,
mans
lived in their shelters
in
Provence
as Allied planes flew 5,408 sorties.
Aboard the Kimberley, on the eve of the invasion, Winston Churchill,
staff,
and
crew tensely watch the progress of the Allied fleet toward the French Riviera.
72
feeble
only
So
was the German response that
fifty
Allied planes
were shot down.
Facing the Allied onslaught from the
south, the
some
Germans
thirty divisions
had, on paper,
between Bordeaux
and Nice to counter the ten-division lied landings. But, in reality, there
only three
Wehrmacht
the landing zone, two of
Al-
were
divisions near
them commit-
ted to holding Marseilles and Toulon.
On August 7, German Army Group G commander General Johannes Blaskowitz, based in the medieval papal city of Avignon, concluded in his report to Hitler that "systematic, especially heavy air attacks
on the transportation
links
over the Rhone and Var rivers point to a landing between these two rivers."
Blaskowitz and his spies inside the Resistance had narrowed the possible
invasion site to a 150-mile strip of coast, but
it
was not
until
that his agents informed
August 12
him
that the
second D-Day would come just three days
later,
birthday. But
on Napoleon's
even with this knowledge Blaskowitz opportunity to prevent an Al-
had
little
lied
beachhead. He had been stripped of
all
but one panzer division in reserve,
and
Hitler's personal order to release
from Carcassonne, 200 miles west the Rhone, arrived too
late.
The 11th
Panzer Division, streaking east at first, then, flage,
it
of
at
night
under a forest of camou-
Bombs
are away. Precise hits destroyed the bulk of the submarine pens at
>
Nazi U-boat base in Toulon, a mq/or preinvasion target.
roaring across every secondary
New
railway lines were
cabanas camouflaged an array of long-
new roads and
range guns. And the Germans had pre-
kowitz would have to rely on what
bridges were built hastily to handle the
pared for airborne invasion farther in-
passed for a Mediterranean Wall and on
tons of supplies and armaments. More
land, planting
army of Eastern Europeans and wounded German veterans to try to
than 100 miles of beaches were heavily
fields
stave off Dragoon.
mandeered
road, reached the
Rhone
had knocked out the
after the Allies
last bridge. Blas-
a polyglot
Even though the
Allies
were not sure
Dragoon would happen
that
week before jumping
off.
until a
Field Marshal
Erwin Rommel had pretty much figured out by early 1944 where the landings
would be made. Although the
re-
gion was outside his jurisdiction, he twice went south on inspections.
He
had concluded that the Hyeres roadstead, so close to Toulon, target; the
was a
logical
Kriegsmarine planted some
60,000 submerged mines in the Hyeres zone.
An army
by
Wehrmacht engineers
cut through Provence;
mined; hundreds of
villas
were com-
along France's favorite beaches,
thousands of "asparagus
stalks,"
protruding beam rigged to a shell by
an antenna
fuse,
each
75mm
were prepared
some 600
ing artillery positions,
concealed in
pillboxes hous-
many
villas or brightly
of
them
colored
cabanas and beachside cafes, were
built.
the beach at Frejus, where Napo-
ning of his "Hundred Days" in 1815,
now 36th
seventy-five miles east of Toulon, at three little resort
were
towns flanking
Saint-Tropez: Cavalaire-sur-Mer (Alpha
leon had stepped ashore at the begin-
foot-thick, ten-foot-high reinforced
landing beaches, between thirty and
beach), Sainte-Maxime (Delta), and
la-
to build a six-
14,
The
To
coastal water,
On
on August
the invasion of Provence began.
every inch of shoreline and
to explode at the slightest contact.
command
in
troopers and gliders.
Just before 10:00 p.m.
as the Siidwall took shape. All
thousands of spikes
and vineyards to impale para-
make gun emplacements
to
was pushed
of 14,000 conscript
borers. Organization Todt,
concrete wall.
the landing zone for the American Infantr>',
refreshment stands and
Saint-Raphael (Camel). The main landings,
on August
15,
were preceded by a
series of special operations the night
before. A 9,000-man airborne assault was coordinated with landings by French commandos and marines to seize key highways and cut off German reinforcements. The 2,000-man 1st Special Services Force, made up of
MHQ 73
—
German
soldiers (background, left)
guard a stretch of the coastline prior
cess to the beach. Artificial stalks that explode to the touch
picked Canadians and Americans, was to seize
two islands west of the landing
zones and knock out
164mm German
first
day could also be highly practical:
had to scale the 35f'-foot
A
Negre.
from
its
cliff
of
Cap
cluster of grenades dropped
top greeted them. By the time
French commandos knew the roads and
the second French contingent, also off
The main invasion
the language and could help seal off
course,
German attempts
been alerted. Sixty commandos, each
to be
assault, by the 3rd,
commanded
by Major General Lu-
cian K. Truscott, an able veteran of
am-
phibious operations in North Africa. Sicily,
and
Seven French divisions
Italy.
were to begin landing the second day
to
The ly,
first
troops ashore were, fitting-
French. The
Marcel Rigaud, this
beach as
command had
first
man was Major
who had summered a boy.
The
at
Allied high
decided against allowing
the French to carry out the major assault for fear they
would be reckless
at
reinforcement.
Seven hundred African commandos came ashore first at Cap Negre, just west of Cavalaire-sur-Mer. Their
split-
second-timed landing had been delayed half an
hour by a navigational error
aboard a Canadian-manned landing
capture Toulon and Marseilles.
74
But a symbolic French presence on the
ac-
vegetation.
guns that could imperil the landings. 45th, and 36th infantry divisions, was
MHQ
redeem French honor.
their quest to
Barbed wire blocked the
to the Allied invasion.
would have been hidden among the natural
in
craft, infantry (LCI).
By the time they
found their target zone and Rigaud
came
ashore, the
man weighed down
Germans had
with eighty-eight
weapons and ammunition, had only thirty minutes left to knock out three 6-inch guns atop the cliff. pounds
of
They climbed straight fight,
into a fierce fire-
but killed twenty Germans and
demolished
all
of the guns.
The French attack on the
right flank,
began flashing green signals seaward,
closer to Cannes, did not go smoothly.
the whole line of LCIs bearing the
The sixty-seven-man French naval-
African
commandos was headed
wrong beach,
—each man lugging
for the
assault
group
three miles west of their
pounds
of the high explosive melinite, a
target. Instead of
an easy landing, they
sixty
submachine gun, and ammunition
scrambled ashore
at
about 2:00
gun
two hours of heavy
In the next
fire.
a.m. into
German machine-
a minefield raked by
50 percent
fighting, they suffered nearly
ment over the killing all aboard.
road to Cannes, was a total failure.
off its
American landing was luck-
At 10:00
ier.
P.M.,
the 1st Special Ser-
commandos
vices Force of 2,000
climbed down from their transports
equip-
Tropezians, ordered to evacuate,
glider
watched as the Germans detonated ex-
Another crashed into
row of huge cypresses, which sheared
a
first
terrain.
struck an oak tree and telescoped,
casualties. Their mission, to cut the
The
men and One
planes and scattered
first,
wings. Other planes struck nose-
then somersaulted several times
before smashing into buildings. Of 407
357 crashed. The army was
gliders,
later to call the
mission the most suc-
plosives
and blew up much of the town.
At 7:30 A.M., the offshore guns
Two minutes later, came from
ican assault began.
the
first
German
volley
Cavalaire-sur-Mer on Alpha beach, the
German
ten-man rubber boats and paddled
cessful airborne operation of the war,
other battery
despite the fact that fully one-third of
ensued. Small forest
Port Cros. Their main target was a bat-
the
tery of four that had
164mm guns
on Levant
shown up on reconnaissance
men were
killed.
casualties, including
The airborne
mission, to block
failed in its
German
434
main
reinforce-
aimed
right flank,
at the
Ajax
and the Gloire. Inland two miles, an-
toward two offshore islands, Levant and
into
fell
and the main 90,000-man Amer-
silent,
fired,
and an fires
artillery duel
broke out and
converged, adding a yellowish
pall to
the dissipating fog.
At 8:00 A.M., the
first
wave of LCIs
photos. Landing at midnight and scal-
ments, for a reason no one had fore-
churned toward the beaches. As the
ing a series of fifty-foot
seen: There were none.
assault troops struggled ashore, the Ger-
cliffs,
quickly overpowered the small
garrison on Levant
German
— and discovered dummies!
that the "big guns" were only
But on Port Cros, needed as the a radar installation,
they
German
site for
defenders
held three thick-walled, centuries-old forts
and fought
off the special forces,
despite heavy naval and aerial
ment,
bombard-
for fully three days.
Exactly as he had at Anzio seven
months Robert
earlier,
into
mans opened
88mm
their mortars
fire,
guns pouring
shells
and
down from
the arriere pays, the mountainous
the hilltops, their machine guns firing
backcountry where they were to seize
from pillboxes and emplacements
five
crossroads towns from
vital
forest fringe.
at the
Three LCIs struck mines.
Fayence to Le Muy. They headed inland
The resistance on Alpha beach remained
just in time. At 5:50 a.m., after waiting
fierce as the
futilely for
hours for the fog to
clear,
second assault began on
Delta beach, at Sainte-Maxime, the ful-
959 planes, including twelve groups of
crum
B-17 bombers and 163 B-25s, began
sion line. Major William C. Eagles and
of the forty-five-mile Allied inva-
his
ing 1,000 pounds of explosives at every
Sainte-Maxime quickly and march
wounded
ten yards. One-third of the sorties had
teen miles inland to rendezvous with the
to be aborted because of the thick fog.
paratroopers at Le Muy.
plunge the 2,000
feet
first
toward the
ground. He dropped straight into
know
way
saturation-bombing the beaches, aim-
T. Frederick, already
thick, swirling
to fight their
airborne Major General
nine times during the war, was the to
By dawn, the surviving paratroopers were beginning
first
ground
fog.
He
that the lead pilot had
a
At 6:00
A.M.,
overlapping naval gunfire
began pounding German
did not
teries, fortifications,
made
The battleship
HMS
artillery bat-
and minefields.
45th Division veterans had to seize
Under heavy that the Allied
fire
fif-
from hidden 88s
bombardment had not
touched, the 45th's "beach jumpers"
its
used heavy wire cutters and bangalore
terrible error, turning sharply off
15-inch guns, and six cruisers and six
torpedoes to cut paths through mined
course after a ninety-degree miscalcu-
destroyers pulverized Alpha beach on
barbed-wire chevaux-de-frise, metal
lation in ly
wind direction
a
as he frantical-
searched for the landing lights put
the
The 14-inch guns of two
left flank.
American
Ramillies, with
battleships, the
Nevada and
out by a party of pathfinders. One by
the Texas, joined
one, scores of the first-wave C-47s
fol-
cruisers and eleven destroyers, to
dropping some 5,000
in-
mel Delta beach
lowed
suit,
fantrymen, artillerymen, and engineers
up
to thirty miles off target.
were dropped,
in full
Some men
pack and para-
stakes,
and
partially
at the center of the
waves flattened the men as rock and
pum-
wall.
and eleven destroyers
metal erupted, leaving a fifteen-foot-
contributed to the ninety-minute bar-
wide hole. GIs and tanks poured
Camel beach on the
through and hurried into the woods.
six cruisers,
rage, shelling
right. In all, 90,000 naval shells
Sainte-Maxime
up by navy
slammed
house-to-house
plummeted
into the beachfront.
To the south
into vineyards, orchards,
of Sainte-Maxime, in
and woods, where sharp branches clawed at them as German machine
the crook of Delta beach,
gunners opened
in the world.
fire.
Many second-wave
Within
landing zone. The battleship Arkansas,
along with three
most drowned; only a few were picked Most of the others
rails.
ment reached a ten-foot-high fortified Under heavy fire, demolition squads planted their charges. Shock
in,
chutes, into the Mediterranean, where
vessels.
mined
minutes, columns of the 157th Regi-
lies
after a
two-hour
but most of the
500-man German garrison escaped.
Saint-
Tropez, the most famous beach resort
German
fell
battle,
officers there
had
The
last
stage of the assault, against
the right flank at Saint-Raphael, would
special orders. At 5:45 a.m., as the Allied
prove the most
221 jeeps. 213 heavy mortars, and anti-
bombardment began,
the LCIs of the 36th "Texas" Division
tank weapons were impaled by the "as-
panded over the
paragus stalks," which tore open the
of
gliders carrying
smoke soon
a flaming ball ex-
resort.
A
great cloud
blotted out the sun.
headed cliffs
of
for the
difficult.
At 8:30 a.m.,
rocky coves and sheer
Camel beach. As the landing
75
were
lost,
Among
Armenians, Azerbaijanis. Most of
Poles,
the
twenty-six vessels damaged.
the 2,041 prisoners, most were
Germans near the beaches had
caped and were fleeing north and
es-
east.
At Adolf Hitler's headquarters in
Rastenburg
in East Prussia,
Colonel
General Alfred Jodl informed the fuhrer when he woke up that the Allied invasion of Provence had begun.
map, was
Hitler, staring at a
silent.
Jodl believed the Riviera attack was
only
The main attack
a diversion:
would come either
in the
Bay of Biscay
or at Marseilles. Suddenly, Hitler
came
"Nothing must be allowed to
fall
into the enemy's hands! Especially
no
to
life.
fuel!
Everything must be destroyed!
The ports must be blocked, the ships
German defenders converted colorful cabanas and villas into defense emplacements, disguising them as lemonade and beer stands like this one.
scuttled.
.
."
.
Before the meeting
ended. Hitler's staff realized he was not just talking about the south of France.
craft
emerged from
a protective
screen, murderously accurate
smoke
German
For weeks, Jodl had been pressing him
hiding machine-gun nests.
to
When minesweepers churned
withdraw
forces
all
from France and
gunners began finding their marks. Two German antitank guns on a rocky
to the shallow azure waters of the Gulf
promontory scored direct
of Frejus at 11:00 a.m.,
Hitler's resolve to fight to the last Ger-
fire
man on French
front line of LCIs.
The next
hits
on the
line
maneu-
vered clear but took direct hits from
in-
German shell repelled them. Heavy bombers
were called
prepare to defend Germany. The Riv-
had finally snapped
iera landings
soil.
To the amazement
dropping 187 tons of
of his generals, he suddenly approved a
88s atop an aqueduct above the town.
explosives before the minesweepers
withdrawal. The Germans were to leave
Braving machine-gun
tried again. Naval
fire,
however,
in,
guns opened up
as
the Texans charged one machine-gun
the 142nd Regiment boarded assault
nest, then another, overrunning the beach and swarming up onto the
craft
Cannes-Saint-Raphael road. In their
With Major General John
wake, scores of defenders were rounded
36th, already ashore
ac-
commander of the on Camel Green,
tually a Polish "volunteer" recruited
Admiral Spencer
S.
from prisoner-of-war camps on the Eastern Front! By shortly after 9:00
whether
up. Every one of the
A.M.,
"Germans" was
the Green zone of Camel beach
was secured, leaving only the assault on
this
craft.
it
was
E. Dahlquist,
left to
Rear
Lewis to decide
to risk his precious landing
He decided
to a small
to divert the attack
beach nearby
at
Dramont.
their strongest stand.
chance to take a
beaches was in the Camel Red zone,
its
out.
The Germans crowded
this
zone
two months
had come four years and
earlier.
and awaited sailing orders. But
More than an hour late, the 142nd began coming ashore, missing the
waters only fifteen feet deep 300 yards
as fast as they
time the German firing kept up.
Camel Red. Here, the Germans made
The most gradual of the Riviera
vital airfield
ten miles
Wehrmacht divisions, the 242nd inside Toulon and the 244th holding Marseilles forty miles farther west. Hitler's withdrawal order
came
too late. Grand Admiral Karl Donitz,
Kriegsmarine commander
in chief, re-
minded Rear Admiral Heinrich Ruhfus, in
command
many
is
at
Toulon, that
"all
Ger-
looking to you and your men."
Surrender was unthinkable. A twelve-
day pitched battle for the Mediter-
to the east that day. in Provence, as
ranean ports brought the Germans
resistance crumbled, the Riv-
face-to-face with colonial French
By the end
German
For the 18,000 Germans of two welldisciplined
iera landings
of
D-Day
were completed. In the
troops,
whose ranks included Kabyle
with underwater obstacles: stakes,
single greatest one-day effort of the
mountain people from
and concrete pyramids loaded
Mediterranean war, 60,150 combat
from Tunisia and Morocco, Tahitians,
with explosives. German engineers had
troops and 6,737 vehicles had been put
West Indians, Caledonians, and Sene-
blown up the
re-
ashore. American losses along the
galese infantry.
them with harmless-looking
beaches were 198 killed and 399
the 3rd African, had already lost 8,000
huts and refreshment stands conceal-
wounded; French
dead
ing long-range batteries and connected
considerably higher. Five landing craft
spikes,
placed
76
by a crenellated concrete-block wall
last
beach houses and
losses
were
said to be
in Italy.
Algeria, Arabs
One French
division,
The French faced the
heaviest fighting and worst casualties
of the Riviera campaign. Total casual-
would be
the
French ranks were continually
man
up
filled
their liberators. As
column cautiously
first
troops and civilians.
and other civilians, as the French fought their way north. For all their
more days
made
little
streets, as the
killed
Tabors flushed out and
Germans
estimations by officers interviewed by
assaults,
the author.
son had had enough.
of naval gunfire,
and bayonet
weeks
In two
encountering heavy German
rock masses perfect for concealing arreached almost straight
tillery
lost
down
to
An American paratrooper dropped too
early,
(right),
thanks members of
the French Resistance
who hid him
sugar-white beaches, pinching the ex-
and later guided Allied troops
posed coast highway. The French ad-
man
vance stalled for a
full
day as
of bitter fighting in
an estimated 4,000 men, including
800 dead, while
artillery
Hyeres. Here, heavily wooded
fire at
bombing, tank
attacks, the garri-
Toulon and Marseilles, the French had
Divi-
moved southwest toward Toulon,
sion
under the sheer
until,
mass
French
five
of bloody house-by-house,
so that casualty counts given here are
19, the 1st
would take
It
garden-by-garden fighting up the steep
paperwork, they
attempt at record-keeping,
On August
among
88s began to explode
with volunteers from the Resistance
fetish for bureaucratic
infiltrated
the Old Port section, the shells of Ger-
assemble, since
difficult to
arms around
their
have never been divulged and
ties
to
a Ger-
Germans
killing 6,000
and taking 37,000 prisoners. Once again the French army had redeemed itself.
The
largest Mediterranean port
could
now
be cleared. In the next nine
months, Marseilles and Toulon would
hiding place.
German
amount
funnel a staggering
men
arms
of
88s and antitank guns raked the French
grenade-and-rocket attack on August
column. A
21, then proceeded to cut off the Ger-
Germany. By September
mans'
the seventy-five ships scuttled by the
full
regiment of the 3rd
African finally encircled the hilltop fortifications
and took them
in a series of
bayonet charges. As the column moved again,
it
encountered
fierce resistance,
last retreat. In
the next three
days, three of the four inner forts capit-
ulated.
On August
zenry held
French
25, the
a victory parade,
citi-
which
time inside Hyeres around the Golf
turned out to be premature. At Saint-
Hotel, where two antitank and three
Mandrier, 1,800 Germans held out for
this
antiaircraft
guns were stoutly defended
by several hundred Germans. Again, a series of bayonet charges
were alternat-
ed with point-blank barrages from
French 105s and 155s and offshore fire. Only 140 Germans were left
naval
bayonet charge. But
alive after the final
three
Nevada. the
two
for
full days.
wooded
hills,
Toulon was guarded by
days. Inside the fort, Ger-
It
was not
until
August
28,
thirteen days after the invasion, that
they had stalled the French advance
Situated in a bay surrounded by
more
man gunners continued to fire two 340mm naval guns in a fierce duel with three Allied battleships: HMS Ramillies, the French Lorraine, and the USS
Germans surrendered.
In the battle
Toulon, 5,000 of them had died.
Meanwhile, a French Resistance uprising inside Marseilles
had begun Au-
the heavily fortified peninsula at Saint-
gust 21. The Maquis held out desperate-
Mandrier. Fifty-four guns ranging from
ly for
until Algerian riflemen
into the final Allied drive into
Germans
at the
15,
enough
of
quays of Marseilles and
Toulon had been cleared
to begin land-
ing 915,512 Allied troops and 4.1 million tons of cargo.
On
the night of August 17, as the
French disembarked
off
Saint-Tropez
and American assault troops were
still
linking up with airborne troops in the
arriere pays, a group of Resistance fighters car.
ambushed
On one
knapsack
a
German command
of the dead officers
filled
Maquis took their find Jones, an
German
was a
with documents. The to Geoffrey
OSS agent dropped behind
lines just before the invasion.
With Jones
at the
command
General Frederick at Le
post of
Muy was
a Ger-
He
were connected by a
fought their way through heavily de-
man-speaking British
of tunnels and sheathed in twen-
fended suburbs. The main 16,000-man
the bloodstained documents before
75mm maze
340mm
two days
and
to
ty-foot-thick concrete walls. Inside the
German
force
made
its
stand on the
officer.
said
them were detailed field orders for the German withdrawal from the south of
held four forts; on
heights around Notre-Dame-de-la-
the outskirts, the French faced antitank
Garde cathedral. Against them, the
France, including troop dispositions
and 150
French began their attack with only
and
of trenches
800 troops of the 3rd Algerian Infantry
Allies
protected by barbed wire and mines.
rushed from Toulon and with a Moroc-
tions.
Some
can Tabor detachment supported by
translated the thick sheaf of docu-
city,
the
Germans
obstacles, pillboxes, minefields, artillery pieces
amid a maze
of the worst fighting
fearless
was
left
to
Moroccan troops who fought
barefoot in
caftans and turbans.
The French
first
2,300-foot heights of
took the sheer,
Mont Coudon
in a
objectives. Until that
had no clear
Working
all
fix
moment, the
on German inten-
night, the
two
men
Sherman
tanks. The appearance of
ments, then woke General Patch. He
these
French troops
set off a wild
could see that the Germans intended to
celebration, the cheering Marseillais
fight only a rearguard action for the
pouring out of buildings and flinging
ports, while their troops
first
withdrew
to
77
fixed positions north
toward Germany.
Leaving the French to fight for the ports, Patch
had no need to
tie
down
thousands of troops to protect his right flanl<;
destroy the before
now free to pursue and German Nineteenth Army
he was
could
it
On August
make 19,
its
escape.
mand
initial
comW.
of Brigadier General Fred
Butler. Crack regimental
combat teams
Americans into a costly
Montelimar, Resistance fighters in the
Germans
Alpine foothills harassed the Germans,
The 11th
preventing them from demolishing
fiasco. In the first place, the
had
a three-day
head
Rhone and
start.
bridged the
roads and bridges over mountain
linked up with elements of
gorges ahead of the American advance.
Panzer Division had
finally
the 198th and 338th infantry divisions; it
Patch formed Task
Force Butler, under the
suit that led the
had prepared
a series of defensive
Only half the troops Truscott wanted
3rd Division raced thirty miles in the
Butler to race to Montelimar could be
twenty-four hours, but, by noon on
transported in trucks. Americans were
first
August
had run smack into
20, they
heavy German
tached from the three American
divi-
for
One
force
that left thousands of casualties on
was
to get behind the
German
retreat,
artillery fire.
The
battle
Montelimar, eight days of fighting
both sides, had begun.
When
General
taking back roads north through Sis-
Butler ordered regiments of the 45th
teron and Grenoble, then swing west
Division to join in the chase, ford the
along the
Drome
Germans
in the
River to bottle up the
narrow gorge between
Loriol to the north
and Montelimar,
fif-
east of
and
it.
But not every apparent intelligence break works to the favor of
its
benefactor. Patch scrapped
supposed
months
of
careful planning for a steady, systematic
drive to link
up with Eisenhower
in
favor of an impetuous, ill-prepared pur-
all
on Grenoble,
fur-
ther slowing his advance during two days of bitter fighting.
Meanwhile, the eight-day battle
but to spread his units too
thin,
for
fifty
miles of Gre-
Loriol to Montelimar, the gorge flanked by steep
crowded Highway
noble, Butler received fresh orders
rail lines. It
from the VI Corps commander, Lucian
block the
K. Truscott:
"You
will
move
at first
light with all possible speed to Monteli-
mar.
.
.
.
Block
up the Rhone
all
routes of withdrawal
Valley."
and
As the tanks and trucks of the 36th village of
German
retreat on
Highway
7,
and
of every
7
German
as
forces
and the adjacent
in this
them with
air support,
narrow his
to
defile
armor, ar-
taking control
mountain pass and ford
But
is
parallel
had been Truscott's plan
Germans
to destroy
tillery,
east.
and 45th converged on the
Running
hills.
to the east bank, the
to the
American units attempted
to close the trap, they hit fierce resis-
tance from
German Panther
tanks and
•^'^^^'•^
south of Montelimar, Allied air strafing succeeded in
wrecking these German vehicles and a supply train carrying an undamaged railway gun.
78
Montelimar, Butler
persisted in his attack
^^' After several failed attempts to block the
terrain. Instead of send-
his troops to
way. Where the Rhone narrows from
little
units rolled within
mountain passes
ing
northeast toward Grenoble, he accomplished
along Highway 7 to drive the Germans
in the
scattered over nearly 100 miles of
mountainous
the gorge at Montelimar was well under
force was to press west, then north
into the waiting blocks at the gorge
now
rain-swollen Durance River, and hurry
some separated by sixty miles of twisting mountain roads. As armored
teen miles south. The main American
of gasoline.
rugged mountains. The U.S.
lines in the
supported by armor were to be desions to pursue the Germans.
But the Americans had a new enemy:
They were running out
heavy guns on the high ground.
When
Cub observation
Truscott, in his Piper
plane, personally inspected the 36th Di-
By the morning of August 26, as
Germans continued
the
Truscott flew in again. At the Texan's
of
command
August 22, he was startled to find that
Dahlquist:
on the morning
vision's positions
to break out,
were
v^'ho
moving north,
still
pushing the Americans ahead of them. Angrily, Truscott fired off a message
come here with
have
I
command
You have reported
You have
morning
done
so.
ders.
You have
formed you, was considerably upset because
me
my
your
post this
original instruction
carried out. Apparently,
.
.
.
I
Valley.
.
.
.
failed to
me
to
that
you are not
But Dahlquist was having trouble
down
to 5,000
absolutely no gas
available at the beaches," he replied. "Be
assured
I
Truscott wasn't satisfied:
Dahlquist explained that for a
troops held the
hill
hills!
"When you
Truscott telephoned again at 2:00 23. Butler or Dahlquist
blow up the main road along the don't
"I
want
a single vehicle to
go up that road." Early that afternoon, Dahlquist's
was too
late:
sistance was too strong.
German
supply
way
and another strong Ger-
line,
attack had hit
He
said he
7 blocked at La
him from the now had HighCoucorde with
some
high ground overlooking the town,
being siphoned
off
by
French armored units attacking the By August 24, portions of the
3rd began working around through the the east of Montelimar. But
German
infantry, armor,
and
now
artillery
I
fumbled
"I feel
While the 11th Panzer was fighting
way out
of the trap, other
nized mass.
It
down
was
Highway
7 in the
American attempts
at
La Coucorde on
same afternoon.
to set
up roadblocks
farther north failed repeatedly.
Germans from French French mili-
far to restore
tary honor.
But the American army,
despite a fantastic buildup of
men and
materiel, had allowed three-fourths of
the
German army
in
southern France
to escape to Italy or north
Belfort gap into
through the
Germany; another op-
portunity for victory in 1944 had slipped away. All hope of beating the
Soviets to Berlin had died on the bloody plain of Montelimar.
The detractors
of Operation Dra-
Clark,
would go
to their graves
at
opened plies,
for
reinforcements and sup-
but the bulk of the Germans had
escaped, to fight on until war's end,
blocking the Americans from a quick
at the
end of the
fight-
German
vehicles, a
thousand
that had been taken or destroyed by artillery fire.
Firing from the hills above
La Coucorde, the 142nd was using
and tank
"motionless
advance into Germany. "For this
a
heavy price was paid," contends Winston Churchill, getting in the in
last
word
Triumph and Tragedy.
of the heavy railway
Anzio, and forty other artillery pieces
rect
German forces than did this attack." The key southern ports had been of
Americans now
could see 2,000 captured and 4,000
destroyed
advantage or aided us more in accom-
mercilessly. Truscott, flying
low in his Piper ing,
into a disorga-
this crawling stop-
start target that the
hammered
German
guns that had pounded the Americans
through
to chase the
going
lib-
French troops had helped
erated, but
soil,
Not only
plishing the final and complete defeat
badly."
it
and guns, seven
escaping northward. The 11th Panzer
Mediterranean ports
vital
od which added more decisively to our
"seven days and nights," adding,
the American line. For the next two
also broke
a vindication.
were the
"there was no development of that peri-
the following afternoon they breached
gap,
Dragoon was
he had
dead horses and their captured wagons
Germans poured through the
all
seemed.
a "terrible strain" for
unleashed a furious counterattack, and
days,
it
disputing Eisenhower's declaration that
divisions broke
hills to
that
Mark
Truscott decided against
this,
advance north from Avignon was going
seaports.
The apparent triumph was not
relieving Dahlquist. Writing after the
its
fuel
350-mile fighting retreat
knowing
Germans. Meanwhile, the 3rd Division's
its
its
goon, including Winston Churchill and
then began an artillery duel with the
badly,
of the Nineteenth
breaking through there, too. Not
been under
to settle for
But the bulk
survived to fight again, making
through the Belfort gap into Germany.
even as he spoke, the Germans were
battle to his wife, Dahlquist said
artillery
But
fully four battalions of artillery.
141st Regiment tried to take Monteli-
The troops had
re-
An enemy
mar but was thrown back by fire.
he
he had tried to make good
it
man
foot."
to
When
found the unit had
position by a range of
its
When
the block,
southwest.
Rhone:
full
overlooking High-
of Montelimar.
misreported
run out of gas, you park your trucks
was
or-
day he had believed reports that his
and move on
on August
my
out
minutes to convince
attack east of Loriol had also cut his
realize the situation."
.A.M.
You have not
Army good
at fault.
visited the front, he
is
7.
failed to carry
just five
way 7 north
of your division.
gallons. "There
you held the
that
prisoners, shattering two rearguard divisions.
For the French army. Operation
make
You must employ the bulk
getting gas: The 36th was
inten-
full
has not been
your mission clear to you ... to block the
Rhone
the
you from your command.
tion of relieving
and, as your Chief of Staff has probably in-
visited
In eight days of fighting, and at a
Truscott's divisions had taken 5,000 John,
you had blocked Highway I
stalled
one long tangle.
cost of 734 American casualties,
high ground north of Montelimar and that
to General Dahlquist of the 36th:
in
post at Crest, he berated
the 36th had failed to block the Ger-
mans,
Infantry had surrounded and captured
350 German guns and vehicles
fire" to
enemy
pound the
vehicles."
"di-
often
The 15th
WiLLARD Sterne Rand.ul,
who
teaches
military history and biography at the University of Vermont,
Thomas
Jefferson:
A
is
the author of
Life
and Benedict
Arnold: Patriot and Traitor. He
ing a book on World
War
II
is
writ-
in the
south of France.
MHQ 79
Why didnt the Soviets warsaw?
take
The answer is simple: They couldn't But many West still claim that Stalin deliberately permitted the Germans to destroy an anticommunist in the
uprising in the Soviet capital, by Marshall Brement
exactly the
same moment
that
ting the finishing touches on
gy Zhukov and Ivan Konev)
Anglo-American plans
fact,
for a cross-
Channel invasion of "Fortress Europe," a
most remarkable meeting
Supreme Headquarters
was taking place pose was to sive
(Stavka)
map
out the
summer
offen-
Joseph Stalin had promised his allies at the
Teheran Conference, to coincide with the
Western
effort.
This was the offensive that
would push the Nazi invaders
off the soil
This in
itself
lin
lead the victory
hand. The laws of war dictated that an offensive thrust should proceed along a
was remarkable, because
infamous purge that Sta-
Red Army
in the late 1930s. Arrested in
his office
and beaten unconscious by
thugs
in
But, to his dis-
may, Stalin rejected the proposal out of
had unleashed on an unsuspecting
NKVD
Supreme Headquarters.
in
Rokossovsky was one of the few victims to survive the
not anticipating any problems from
August 1937, Rokos-
single axis with the full force of an at-
army hammering
tacking
at the
enemy's
weakest point, the Soviet dictator
said.
Splitting the attack in two directions
would
vitiate its force.
Rokossovsky replied
that, generally,
was correct, but the terrain of
Stalin
sovsky had been dragged off to prison,
Byelorussia precluded a single massive
March 1940,
thrust. "In deciding to deliver two
where he remained
until
most
stubbornly refusing to admit that the
strikes,"
successful military operation carried out
charges against him had any basis. He
"we allowed a certain dispersion of our
of
Mother Russia.
by the Red
Army
It
in
was
to be the
World War
II,
but
it
was one
of the few lucky survivors of the
Rokossovsky said after the war,
but no other solution promised
forces,
one of the most debat-
campaign of terror that eliminated 80
success in view of the forest and
ed episodes of the war: the Warsaw upris-
percent of the higher leadership of the
terrain
ing and the consequent destruction of the
Soviet
would
Polish
On
also trigger
Home Army and the the night of
May
al
22, 1944, Su-
against Hitler's original onslaught in
who had been
appointed
commander
of the 1st Byelorussian
Army Group,
to present his plans to lib-
erate Byelorussia
Forces, a major factor in
the Red Army's feckless performance
the
(soon to be Marshal) Konstantin
Rokossovsky,
Armed
Polish capital.
preme Headquarters summoned Gener-
and push forward into
commander of the Army in the battle for MosDon Army Group at Stalingrad,
summer and autumn
Now, taking
Such
a decision
made
possible the
application, in the first attack, of maxi-
mum
force in
two
different directions
and prevented the enemy from moving
of 1941.
into account the
tion.
swamp
and the enemy's troop disposi-
marshy
troops from one sector to another."
terrain of Byelorussia, the Soviet republic
that lay between
Moscow and War-
Polish soldiers fight in Lublin, toward
saw, Rokossovsky and his staff had de-
the end of July 1944. Desperate for
termined that the offensive
manpower, the Soviet high command
in their area
had permitted the formation of a
Poland. Formerly
of operations should proceed in
Sixteenth
roughly equal thrusts on either side of
rate Polish army, but only a few units
the marshes. The General Staff had ap-
were ready for combat by that sum-
proved their plans without corrections
mer. These went into the line south of
cow, the
and the Central Front
at
Kursk, Rokos-
sovsky would emerge from the war as
80
would be chosen to
— and,
parade in Red Square in June 1945.
of the
in the Kremlin. Its pur-
American and British
MHQ
Red Army (along with Geor-
shals of the
At Soviet
one of the three most prestigious mar-
Dwight D. Eisenhower was put-
or
two
amendments, and Rokossovsky was
Warsaw but never reached the
sepa-
city.
II
«S*i
'r^
-^r^^
4fJ
•«
-^^'^
'"^
—
—a
"Nonsense!" Stalin had exclaimed
when
the general expounded his views.
"Get out and think things over again."
Rokossovsky waited next door, pacing the floor while
"I'm sure I'm right," the general
ders a single blow,
A
clock indicat-
summoned back room, cutting
summoned back to the conference room. "Have you thought it through,
"So what
Comrade
means
"Well, then, that single blow?"
ry in
marker along the
Stalin pushed a
map toward
where he thought the
east of Minsk,
principal blow should
Rokossovsky
fall.
followed the marker with his eyes. There
was not a sound
in the
room
as every-
one present, with the exception of Stagazed intently
"Two blows
are
at
him.
more
advisable.
Com-
dissipate
our forces?"
Stalin.
But we do
taking into account the of Byelorussia
enemy
swampy
terrain
and the disposition of
After a long silence, without taking his eyes off the
map, Stalin
"Go out and think
said in a low
it
over again.
immediate task of the Soviet summer
recall
had had thousands of
offensive
anyone ever like this. Sta-
men
killed for
was
to eliminate that bulge.
Rokossovsky's wisdom was more than
borne out
in the
subsequent Byelorus-
which
sian campaign, in
his First
But the expected
Byelorussian Front was one of the four
outburst of rage did not take place. Sta-
front armies deployed in a sweeping arc
far smaller offenses.
lin
smoked
his ever-present pipe reflec-
Then he approached Rokos-
sovsky, put a
And
hand on
sion,
his shoulder,
"You know, Rokossovsky generally
I
like I
a
and
converging on Minsk, headquarters of the
German Army Group
Center.
Rokossovsky had roughly half the forces
right.
that
were devoted
to Operation Bagra-
commander who
tion
(named
Russian general
is
confirm your deci-
Comrade Rokossovsky."
after a
million men, 166 divisions, 31,000 guns
There was good reason for Stalin's relatively
benign
spirits as
he and his
and mortars, 6,000 tanks, and 7,000 planes, according to Soviet figures
lieutenants turned their attention to the
superiority over the
new
in
plans proposed by the General Staff.
The long-promised Anglo-American
ond
front,
sec-
guaranteed by Franklin D.
men, 2.9
4.3 to
1
to
1
in tanks,
in
Germans
and 4.5
to
1 in
planes.
Operation Bagration smashed the Nazi
more than
Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to
defensive lines, destroying
begin in May, would become a reality
half of the forty-five divisions in
more than
within a few weeks. This was expected to
Army Group Center and costing the Germans 350,000 men. The Wehrmacht was
and Georgy Malen-
—
of miles to central
henchmen
Poland and the East
entered the room.
Prussian frontier.
Anxious not to
Rokossovsky got up.
was
hundreds
rolled back
Stalin's senior
political
It
1
guns and mortars,
into the
two hours. Finally,
—
of 2 to
The general again marched
kov
who
fought another invader. Napoleon), which was carried out by more than 2.5
Vyacheslav Molotov
tip
their hand, the So-
after 1 a.m.
"Don't forget where
viets
had screened
you are and with
their
huge buildup of
whom
forces with a careful
you're talk-
ing. General,"
kov
said
campaign
Malen-
tion.
harshly.
"You're disagreeing
blow
with Comrade Stalin!"
sia
"You'll
agree,
have
"Agree! there
is
fell
in
Byelorus-
on June 22, the
to
third anniversary of Hitler's Barbarossa
— that's
to
of decep-
So when the
Rokossov-
sky," said Molotov.
82
250 miles
still
within Soviet territory. The principal
Don't be stubborn, Rokossovsky."
next room, and he waited
MHQ
between
except for the "Byelorussian bulge,"
where the Germans were
this while
troops."
voice,
lin
for 2,000 miles
the Gulf of Finland and northern Ro-
mania, Bessarabia, and the Black Sea
are better than
standing up to "the Boss"
sticks to his guns.
"A certain dissipation will occur,
Comrade
No one could
said:
we not thereby
Germans ran
—two weak blows
your opinion?"
tively.
rade Stalin," he said.
"Will
better
"They should both be primary."
the city of Rogachev, south-
of Sovi-
easier.
the front between the Soviets and the
argument.
"But which of them should be prima-
we'll strike a
much
By the time of Rokossovsky's con-
one strong blow," said Rokossovsky.
Stalin."
et territory that
to the conference
"Two strong blows
sir,
Germans out
task of driving the
frontation with Stalin in the Kremlin,
off further
is
making the
divert the Nazis in the West,
them were
or one strong blow?" asked Stalin.
General?"
lin,
will ask to be re-
I
At that point the three of
ed 10:20 P.M. After half an hour he was
"Yes
or-
army-group command."
lieved of the
Supreme Headquarters
discussed other matters.
Supreme Headquarters
replied. "If
it."
all
invasion,
Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky Both these men had the nerve
(left)
meets with Marshal Georgy Zhukov,
to contradict Stalin to his face.
it
took the
Germans by complete surprise.
—
—
Pionieren combat engineers attack a T-34 with Panzerfausten (antitank weapons) on June 30, 1944. This type of weapon, combined with the Germans' high standards of training, nearly neutralized the Red Army's tremendous superiority in tanks.
The campaign
in
many ways seemed
100,000 soldiers was caught in a pocket
which the Red Army
to mirror the events of 1941. In that
east of Minsk,
year Stalin had refused the plea of
seized July 3, attacking and encircling
Colonel General Mikhail Kirponos, com-
from the northeast and southeast. Some
mander
of the
Southwestern Army
Group, to allow his army of more than half a million
men
to
make an
orderly
—a blunder that
it
the
first
Nazi death
camp
By July 31, a number
to be liberated.
of Rokossovsky's
tanks had almost reached the near side of the Vistula River.
wounded and
The Germans considered the Byelo-
the rest taken prisoner. They formed
russian campaign the worst defeat ever
40.000
men were
killed or
the bulk of the 57,000 Germans, led by
inflicted
on the Wehrmacht along the
who were paraded
Eastern Front. Hitler, in a fury about the
sulted in the army's complete destruc-
through the streets of Moscow on July
recent attempt to assassinate him, un-
tion as a fighting force. In the same way,
17, in
retreat
from Kiev
in 1944, the
commander
of
re-
Army Group
several generals,
order to raise Russian morale and
disprove assertions by
German propa-
derstood what tegically.
it
had done
He knew
Center, Field Marshal Ernst von Busch,
ganda minister Joseph Goebbels that the
was through Warsaw. And
immediately realized that he lacked the
Wehrmacht was
that the
forces to contain the Soviets
and plead-
ed for permission from Hitler to "short-
carrying out a "planned
a 250-mile
gap
pull out of Byelorussia;
that allowed Rokossovsky's troops to ad-
instead. Hitler fired the "spineless"
vance at breakneck speed beyond the
Busch and issued orders
to his garrison
forests, lakes,
—
a directive that
en the
in
line"
Minsk
and
to stand fast
caused the garrison's annihilation.
Between June 23 and broke through the
German
places, killing tens of
taking more
28. the Soviets lines in six
thousands and
than 20,000 prisoners at
Vitebsk and Bobruisk alone. By obeying Hitler's orders to stand fast,
an army of
and
flat
terrain of Byelo-
russia into Poland, covering
him
stra-
Germans threw
it
was there
in their princi-
pal reinforcements, in a desperate effort
withdrawal from Byelorussia."
The Soviets opened
to
that the road to Berlin
between
ten and fifteen miles a day. While their
to halt the Soviet juggernaut.
On August began.
It
1,
the
Warsaw uprising
was quite natural
for the Poles,
marking the day-by-day advances Red Army,
to
assume
that
of the
Warsaw would
be taken in a matter of days. Anti-Soviet
were advancing into
Poles were eager to enter the fray, and
Lithuania, the Soviets took Baranovichi
they did not want the perpetrators of the
forces to the north
on July
8,
then Brest Litovsk on July 28,
ending the German presence russia. In Poland, Lublin
on July
23; nearby,
in Byelo-
was captured
Majdanek became
newly discovered massacre Forest, in
in the
Katyn
which Soviets had shot thou-
sands of captured Polish
officers, to re-
ceive the credit for their liberation.
Gen-
MHQ 83
eral
Tadeusz Bor-Komarowski, leader of
the underground Polish (the
Home Army
Armija Krajowa, or AK), faced
a
dilemma. He understood that his forces
were no match But
for the
German army.
the Soviets liberated
if
Warsaw by
themselves, they would simply turn
communist
over to their
Polish
it
allies, re-
cently constituted as a separate govern-
On
mental
entity.
Soviets
marched
the other hand,
the
if
into a city with a Polish
administration in place, protected by
own armed
its
forces, hostile action against
those forces would imperil good relations with the
When
Americans and
British.
Soviet tanks were sighted
outskirts of Praga, a suburb of
on July 31, he signaled
on the
Warsaw,
against the Germans. In the
first
some
had averaged 3,000 sorties per day July
habitants were sent to forced labor in
managed only 240 per
day August 1-13.
Germany. Another 550,000 were shipped to a concentration camp at
Center sent Hitler a cautiously opti-
orders to raze the city "without a trace,"
18-20, but they
On August 3. the commanding general of Army Group mistic report
— the
first in six
weeks.
when
The time had come, he
said,
forces could hold their
own and
planning to take the
his
start
initiative. In re-
sponse. Hitler sent reinforcements. In
week
the second
of August, three fresh
grenadier divisions and two panzer brigades arrived at
Army Group
offensive trailed off into ran-
dom
and
swirls
This
eddies.
Warsaw high and the
AK was
was
dry. Their defeat
On September
2,
forced to abandon Warsaw's
mained standing. By the time was
tion inflicted
on Warsaw was
Stalin was furious about
undertaken
for
obvious political
purposes. Poland was, of course, central to his strategic thinking. As he tell
following February:
Poland
take such vital points as the airport, the
through waste-deep sewage to tempo-
also a question of security.
Vistula bridges, or the railroad station.
rary safety.
They managed
on September
to hold out for sixty-three
urban guerrilla warfare
in history
—but
ly
es-
district of Powisle fell
6.
Hope was momentari-
revived in mid-September
Red Army managed
to take
when
the
and hold
no substantial help came from the Red
Praga. Supplies were air-dropped by
Army,
British,
Without
stalled across the Vistula.
such help, the Poles never had a chance of prevailing over the forces of al
Erich von
ler's
dem
SS Gener-
Bach-Zelewski,
Himm-
deputy for counterpartisan warfare,
who were
For the Russian people, the question of
tory,
lected by the
Germans, not the insur-
Zygmunt
ish forces, fighting
Berling's Pol-
under Soviet com-
is
not only a question of honor but
Twice
Not about to countenance
Poland, Stalin had washed his hands of
American and
to permit
stroying the capital, district by district.
the Vistula, but they were driven back
uprising.
were impeded by their
Poles.
fate of their fellow
The Germans,
of course,
had no
such inhibitions. After the
AK was
compelled to withdistrict, the
mans summarily executed 8,000 The Ochota
district fell
Ger-
Polish
on Au-
gust 11, precipitating the murder of an-
other 40,000.
Women
German
roped to
and children were
tanks to prevent Pol-
ish units
from attacking with Molotov
cocktails.
To
frustrate
AK
snipers, the
Nazis shielded their infantry ranks with
rows of
civilian hostages.
hospitals to the patients
still
September
They burned
ground with
staff
and
Meanwhile, the Soviets had
defense, the
finally
outrun their supplies. Short of gasoline.
districts of Czernifell
on
and 30.
Home Army was
forced to
soil
during the
since the Soviet offensive
had halted so close very time the cally
up a heroic but doomed
And
British supply
on Soviet
to
Warsaw
Germans were
at the
systemati-
wiping out the Polish resistance
forces, Churchill
and the Polish govern-
ment-in-exile in
London
naturally sus-
surrender; General Bor-Komarowski
pected, as early as mid-August, that the
had no choice but to sign an act of
Soviet dictator's deliberate aim was to
pitulation on October 2.
ca-
Ammunition
and supplies were exhausted, and
at
20,000 of his fighters had been
least
killed,
along with some 225,000
Nazis
—aware that the Home Army held
several
let
hundred German prisoners, and
the
Germans destroy
in the future.
The Soviets denied such accusations heatedly,
and over the years they have
offered considerable evidence to back
summer
note, their
had become an embarrassment to
stop only at Warsaw.
rights to the
remaining members of the AK,
came
who
full-fledged prisoners of war.
be-
up
their contention. In the first place, they
anxious to put an end to a struggle that
—awarded combatant
a force that
could be potentially troublesome to him
civil-
ians. In their lone concession, the
them
inside.
The
23, 26,
After putting
draw from the Wola
citizens.
across the river.
akow, Mokotow, and Zoliborz
interfer-
the Polish resistance forces and refused
aircraft to land
fighters
this corridor.
ence in his plans to exert control over
mand, established bridgeheads across
concern over the
his-
our enemies, the
in the last thirty years
Germans, have passed through
methodically and savagely de-
The AK
Throughout
Poland has been the corridor through
which the enemy has passed into Russia.
American, and Soviet planes
but roughly 80 to 90 percent were col-
gents. General
would
Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta the
the sewers, traversing four miles
perhaps the largest episode of
what he
called the "treachery" of the Poles' up-
caped through a single manhole into
in
paralleled
shima, and Manila.
suburbs, but they failed to
—
work
only by such cities as Dresden, Hiro-
by a sympathetic population, seized the
days
their
finished, the totality of the destruc-
Old Town. About 2,000 survivors
The
systemati-
blew up the buildings that re-
rising,
the heroic insurgents in
left
German demolition squads cally
Center.
The Soviet
its in-
Pruszkow. In accordance with Hitler's
40,000 poorly armed insurgents, assisted
city's central
84
Warsaw. Some 150,000 of
city of
only a matter of time.
four days of fighting,
The Germans evacuated the entire
slowed almost to a stop. Soviet air units
his followers to
long-planned open uprising
start the
Warsaw
the tanks attacking toward
offensive did not It
stopped
all
along
a front that stretched for hundreds of miles. far
The Red Army had gone about
and as
fast as
it
as
could and needed re-
Men
of the Armija Krqfowa, the Polish
Home Army,
sprint across a
Warsaw
The Poles were poorly
street early in the uprising.
equipped but highly motivated! they managed to hold out for 63 days before surrendering, and were then granted POW status. inforcements and refitting before the final
thrust into Germany.
Army had
2,
Americans easy victories
succeed-
that
ed in securing a bridgehead across the
seize
Berling's Polish First
More important, the Germans had
in the
West so
London and Washington could the bulk of German territory. Sta-
was deeply suspicious that London
weeks
Vistula and was ordered "to advance
lin
August four armored divisions had
along the road running parallel to the
and Washington would succumb to Nazi
dug of
ther points out that, on August
in at
Warsaw, and
in the first
thrown the Soviets back
at
blandishments and negotiate a separate
able distance, perhaps sixty-five miles,
the nearby Pilica River. In addition, Gu-
peace, thereby depriving the Soviet
from the suburbs of the Polish
derian says, "the
Between August
1
for a consider-
capital.
and September
15,
dence that the struggle
was stopped
German 9th Army had
the impression, on August
8,
that the
Union of
He
its
hard-fought political gains.
correctly believed that his postwar
Russian attempt to seize Warsaw by a
political position
coup de main had been defeated by our
Soviet Union would depend to a great
in this sector
defense, despite the Polish uprising, and
extent on where the Red
and his
that the latter had, from the enemy's
physically located
Warsaw
point of view, been begun too soon."
—firm
a walkover. Hitler
generals were not going to give
up without the toughest kind
Commenting on
it
evi-
Rokossovsky's First Byelorussian Front suffered 166,000 casualties
was no longer
Vistula to Warsaw"; but
of fight.
this question in his
memoirs, General Heinz Guderian states, "We Germans had the impression
Finally, there
can be no question that
Stalin's strategic
aim was
to
the conquest of Poland and
ward
to
Germany
complete
ended. as
when
desperate for
central
Army was hostilities it
to secure
and eastern European
territory as possible.
march on-
as quickly as possible.
He was
much
and the security of the
It is if
therefore safe to
assume
—even
one completely accepts the Polish ac-
— that
soon as the Armija
it
was our defense that halted the
The main Soviet
enemy
rather than a Russian desire to
1944 and early 1945, was that the Ger-
Krajowa was suppressed, the Red
mans would allow
would continue
that
sabotage the Warsaw uprising."
He
fur-
political
worry, in late
the British and
cusation
as
its
Amy
march toward Ger-
85
Soviet machine gunners fire from a
window
in
Praga at Germans on the opposite bank of the
would also have had a panoramic view of the Home Army fighting many. While
Stalin, the perpetrator of
the Katyn massacre, could not have
the city until January 17, three and a half
him
was
Stalin
the
a secondary priority to
Werth, the London Times correspon-
ing the height of the battle.
Far more important
dent, himself a native Russian.
The
at
it
— to — that the
was clear
all
summer offenwhich Rokossovsky
hugely successful Soviet If
Germans had not thrown
the
mour
[in early
August],
in all that ar-
we could have taken
sive of 1944, in
played such a key role, was the penulti-
was never more than a 50-50 chance. ... Do
mate thrust against the Nazis. The Wehrmacht was on the ropes engaged
in this
you think that we would not have taken War-
in a hopeless
British
and American acquiescence
this. It
should not be forgotten
regard that Churchill, accompanied by
from the London
government, had an extremely cordial
Moscow just one week
In any event,
26, dur-
in
Polish expense in 1939, and he needed
a delegation of Poles
assessment of
Warsaw uprising on August
Russian and German alike
general said:
His primary aim con-
made
who
on May 22-23, was also on the
on August 26, 1944, with Alexander
gains that the Soviet Union had
Warsaw, though not
saw
we had been
if
idea that is
we
in a frontal attack;
able to do
it?
but
it
The whole
are in any sense afraid of the
months
In
sum, the
—
attempt to stem the tide
crucial question regarding
Marshall Brement is the author of Reaching Out to Moscow (Praeger, 1991). A former U.S. ambassador to Ice-
Em-
Yalta Conference
was
away. The fact
that the final surren-
whether the Soviets could have forced
der of Polish underground forces in
the Vistula, established a bridgehead, and
1970s, and was in charge of Soviet
Warsaw took
taken Warsaw in August and September.
fairs
The
staff
is
still
four
place on October 2, and
the Soviets did not succeed in taking
blame
for the tragedy of the uprising
best evidence
seems
in
both the East and the West.
AK
too idiotically absurd.
after Bor-
Komarowski's surrender, or that the
86
could not and that Rokossovsky,
dared to speak the unpalatable truth to
later.
as a fighting
AK
cerning Poland was to preserve the
visit to
this location they
than a mile away.
level in his off-the-record
at that time.
allies.
From
less
record conversation about this matter
was the maintenance of good relations with his
Vistula.
Warsaw,
Union by the
to the Soviet
elimination of the force, this
months
Rokossovsky himself had an off-the-
been insensible to the advantages that
would accrue
to the death in central
is
to be that they
land, he served twice in the U.S.
bassy in Moscow, in the 1960s and af-
on the National Security Council during the Carter administration.
''That unbelievable Majdanek (Maidanek
man) was
the
liberated
beyond words.
Russian-born Alexan-
who covered
der Werth,
the
London
Soviet Union for the
Sunday Times and BBC from
1941
to 1948,
view what he called "that unbelievable
Death Factory two
miles from Lublin.
count
"
This ac-
adapted from his
is
like that.
War
book, Russia at
(E.P.
It
harmless from outside. Then
barrack rivals
[in
"Unbelievable"
BBC
The naked people (men
women
one time,
driven or forced from the
bathhouse into
— about —and then, with
it
was
it;
a Rusit
the discovery in
and the spyhole
—the process
some hot
air
from the
ceiling
most
Western press
ig-
nored his account. But
in
of the
and
were piled up children's
stench was
teddy bears, and celluloid
still
now seemed
it
pursuing me; to
permeate
and
dolls
tin
can-made Mickey Mouse.
in the
hot wet air they rapid-
evaporated. In anything
minutes
to ten
everybody was dead.
The corpses were loaded into lorries, covered with tarpaulins,
and carted to the
crematorium, about half
a
of
The great principle
of the
document showed
in the first
1944 alone, eighteen railway
ing should be wasted. There
wagons
was, for instance, that enor-
Lublin warehouse had been
mous
sent to Germany.
barnlike structure that
of
Himmler himself had
—among
twice visited Maidanek and
of boots
and shoes
tiny baby shoes; now,
by the end of August, half
had been pleased with
the shoes had gone:
Hun-
lion people
mounds
of white ashes; but
dreds of people from Lublin
death here.
you looked closer, you
had come and taken whole
other this
German atrocities; but was something even
as
found that they were not per-
more staggering. For here
fect
was
among them masses
a vast industrial under-
ashes,
for
[In
bones: collarbones,
hundreds of thousands of
bune
human
"ordinary" Germans had
finger bones,
made it a full-time job to murder millions of other
and even a small femur, which can only have been
and
people in a sort of mass orgy
that of a child.
big
worse like
still,
with the business-
conviction that this was
bits of skull,
The normal capacity
of
classified
and packed
room
there were thou-
Maybe we should wait
for further
corroboration of the horror story that
comes from Lublin. Even
of the maniacal Nazi ruthiess-
Then
there
Many corpses were burned
thousands of women's dress-
danek was a feeling of sur-
outside the crematorium on
es,
first
other.
at that time:
Here were thousands
cases.
of pairs of shoes.
reaction to Mai-
My
any
of
Tri-
on top of all we have been taught
was
like
comment
York Herald
sands of trunks and suit-
2,000 corpses
but
for
export to Germany. In one
the whole installation was a day,
in the
skeptical.
still
murdered people were sorted
sometimes there were more.
a job
New
It
had been put to
Typical was this
the
taking in which thousands of
of professional sadism, or,
another huge ware-
house,] the possessions of
it.
1.5 mil-
The press and radio
West were
bagfuls of shoes.
they had
was estimated that
of small
and
goods from the
had contained 850,000 pairs
camp, there were enormous
of
that
few months of
Murder Camp was that noth-
them
mile away.
so on, and so on.
[A]
all this.
Everybody had heard
and thousands
automobiles by
And
the people, and
At the other end of the
of Babi Yar
toys:
naively growing in the midst
down on
everything
Russia the effect was devastating.
room
pencils. In the next
hastened to the car. The
saw puzzles, and an Ameri-
About de-
had seen enough, and
I
of safety
and shaving brushes,
and thousands of penknives
the air with a stench.
fill
razors,
and the red poppies that were
from two
Simonov
weeks and
beside the barbed-wire fence,
were also genuine.
in Pravda; but
for
Cyclon were show-
ly
later
room had hundreds
would smolder
and then the pretty pale-blue
Maidanek and Auschwitz
it all
sands of overcoats. Another
in petrol; these pyres
the hundred, and simple jig-
ered
23.
was
enormous funeral pyres soaked
—the dusty grass
in
Dachau, and Belsen that they were convinced that
Maidanek on July
of gassing
pumped
crystals of
The Russians discovered
in the
began. First
the west of Buchenwald,
week
was
for a small skylight in the
sian propaganda stunt, and
scribed
it
completely dark there, except
door
a
— and
When
was:
German POWs are forced to view the remains of victims at first death camp liberated by Allied forces.
Mqjdanek, the
five
a detailed re-
it
1944, they refused to use
till
dark
[six]
concrete boxes yards square
ceiling
was not
another
time, children the next) were
port on Maidanek in August
they thought
ar-
had undressed].
into each box
sent the
a large
which the new
200 or 250 people packed
Button, 1964).
I
was nothing
looked singularly
It
we stopped outside
became the
Western journalist to
first
had imagined some-
I
thing horrible and sinister
by any Allied forces. A month later,
prise.
Nazi ex-
first
camp
termination
in Ger-
Death Factory*'
a long corridor with
and another with thou-
ness, this
example sounds incon-
ceivable. ...
If
authentic, the
regime capable of such crimes deserves annihilation.
MHQ 87
a
TACTICAL EXERCISES The Failure of Market-Garden by Rod Paschall
When
an Allied airborne
German-occupied Hol-
heads for ground forces, destroy his sup-
summer
1944,
plies
it
or on his flank to seize bridge-
and communications, or perhaps
ground
launched the largest coordinated para-
just hold vital
chute, glider, and tank attack of
penetrating tank column.
There had been nothing
And
like
it
—
all
time.
Whereas
before.
there has been nothing like
since
were
it
Allied
tactically
until relieved by a
armored
divisions
tle
and armored thrust aimed
once they landed, were almost
at
turning
with Axis forces, airborne divisions,
the end of Hitler's West Wall and reach-
well as scantily equipped
ing Germany, failed to achieve
armed.
case can be
made
its
goal.
for failure
due
75mm pack howitzers,
and
static, as
lightly
a few jeeps,
Rifles, carbines,
some
and bazookas
to the inherent tactical limitations of
were about
the forces involved.
pect until ground forces reached them.
Although modern airborne and
mored
forces
ing World faster.
I,
arm developed
the tank
the paratroopers could ex-
American doctrine advised
ar-
were both conceived dur-
War
all
manders that the mere existence
man,
were cautioned to use these
envisioned the mass
of parachutists, the British
had already attempted a full-blooded
mored ell's
assault, at
ar-
Cambrai. Under Mitch-
direction, a staff officer. Lieutenant
equipped elements only
if
ployed in mass and could be supported
by other forces within about three days. Despite the built-in weaknesses and limitations of Allied parachute
scheme
er units, British
to drop the better part of an
American division near Metz. War's end seri-
and
from them.
September 1944, soon
after the
had substantial armored forces on
ous development continued during the
Allies
interwar era, mostly in the Soviet Union
the Continent, a bold plan was ap-
and Nazi Germany.
proved.
When German
paratroopers
demon-
strated the effectiveness of airborne forces in 1940, British
and American
military leaders began to
nest
on
diately
their
own
saw the
work
versions.
tactical
in ear-
They imme-
advantages
commander could simply
fly
—
over the
opposition and land infantry on top of
an objective. Although there were
differ-
It
envisioned a dramatic plunge
out from the
Allies' left flank
ernmost positions
The
Hitler's
Montgomery's
overall objective
enough north
and north-
—newly promoted
Field Marshal Bernard sector. far
glid-
and American military
chiefs expected great things
In early
was
to get
to race past the
end of
West Wall and then turn toward
commanded
divi-
by another
British officer. Lieutenant General
F.A.M. Browning, would seize
fifty-five
along the
XXX
Corps's path. The
paratroopers and glidermen would be delivered by over 1,600 transport aircraft shuttling
back and forth between
England and the Netherlands. Together with hundreds of bombers and fighters, the entire airborne force was placed
under the
command
of the First Air-
borne Army, an enormous sky armada led by the
same American
officer
who
had crafted the 1918 Metz parachute plan: Lewis Brereton,
now
a U.S.
Army
Air Forces lieutenant general.
The
terrain along the planned attack
corridor presented the Allies with both
were few large wooded
Monty assigned the ground column's Second Army. The
areas, so preced-
ing fighter-bombers had the chance to
catch
German
defenders in the open,
and the region's extensive road network afforded multiple routes for British ar-
mor. On the other hand, once the paratroopers and glidermen landed, the lack of forests
meant
enemy motorized
that
and armored forces might
easily locate,
outflank, or overrun the Allies. Then, too, the countryside
was marked by
or even flooded fields
—poor ground
soft
for
Horrocks's tanks and wheeled vehicles.
There were scores of bridges and ferry sites
along or surrounding the attack
corridor, providing the Allies with both
favorable and unfavorable conditions.
On
the heart of Germany.
tasks to his British
and two American airborne
sions and
advantages and disadvantages. There
lightly
they were em-
Colonel Lewis H. Brereton, worked out a
precluded the plan's realization, but
of air-
but commanders
tect vital installations;
Billy Mitchell,
com-
borne units could threaten an enemy,
Pershing's imaginative, contentious air-
employment
field
causing him to disperse his forces to pro-
By 1918, when General John
airborne corps composed of one
sites
mobile and heavy, capable
of conducting sustained, toe-to-toe bat-
possibly because Operation
lied
British
miles of critical terrain and bridging
Market-Garden, the combined airborne
A good
the plus side. Allied aircraft could
isolate the battlefield,
and
rail
knocking out road
crossings leading into the attack
ences, the U.S. Army's experience in cre-
lead penetration and linkup with the
corridor. In addition, airborne troops
ating such forces
paratroopers would be accomplished by
would enjoy a
efforts.
The
"vertical
88
to land a force behind the
enemy
land at the end of
MHQ
was
idea
tal
army descended on
was similar
tactical
to Britain's
concept was called
envelopment." The fundamen-
the British eral
XXX
Corps, Lieutenant Gen-
Brian Horrocks in
command. An Al-
Since the
sizable tactical advantage:
German
defenses around
these sites were mainly oriented toward
The largest coordinated parachute,
and tank assault of all time
glider,
was doomed by flawed verticalenvelopment
the south, the paratroopers could land to the north of the crossings
category, the well-known clivitx'
pro-
yond Nijmegen. heading north
Taylor believed
and a legion of engineers well
for-
ward
in his
little
doubt there would be bridge-repair
ground columns. There was
delays during the advance; therefore,
airborne
The
entire region
was dotted with
and towns, many
of
them
sur-
rounding some of the better crossing sites.
These built-up areas naturally
channeled and slowed road
Arnhem and
by 1st
and
traffic
men
there,
some
of
them cut
on the
ever the diplomat, pointed an accusing
—more so than the Americans.
result, a substantial portion of their
who
the fight. Those
did land
for eight days, twice the
hung on
ar-
late.
It all
large.
unfolded on September 17. 1944.
In broad daylight, lead elements of the
three airborne divisions landed at different locations while the
XXX Corps
tacked northward toward the objective,
first
at-
major
Eindhoven, about twelve miles
beyond British
lines.
There, the U.S.
101st Airborne Division achieved almost
ish troops
—but only about 2,200
Brit-
were successfully evacuated;
about 1,800 had died and more than
hours of repair by en-
gineers set things right. that Horrocks's
The rub was
armored column was
slow, so twenty-four hours were lost before
it
hooked up with the
The less
U.S.
101st.
82nd Airborne Division had
success than the 101st. The 82nd's
was about
would have been
still
that terrain.
German armor probably would have moved to where they could see the narrow approaches and successfully blocked road-bound British tanks. No matter
when
the lightly
forces
were employed, they would have
Afterward, there was no shortage of finger-pointing. ers
Matthew
B.
American airborne
Gavin agreed that of British
lead-
armor
it
was a simple matter
failing to get to
in time. Horrocks, the British
unlikely the operation
Arnhem
tank com-
made
it
would have been
so successful that the West Wall
been
would
Other reasons were given. The Gerthat the tactical timing
of the Allied attack lieved
was flawed. They be-
Montgomery's plan might have
worked
if
Allied airborne
immobile once they to
German
inforcements that could pick them at leisure.
the
The deeper they were
re-
off
placed,
more vulnerable they became. And
British tankers faced scores of delay-
producing water obstacles. Market-
Garden proved
to be a case of tactical
limitations precluding strategic success.
have been outflanked, in any event.
mans concluded
tactically
armed
were on the ground, prey
Ridgway and James
Still, if
think what might have happened
George Patton and not Brian Horrocks
had been Pity the
at the
helm
of the
XXX Corps.
Germans caught between him
and those British
at
Arnhem.
he had launched his armor
German
first,
drawing
off
that
moment
the
megen region. The division was delayed by German armor and foot soldiers in
borne forces would have been unop-
thirty to thirty-five
there
Montgomery's timing had been
eration Market-Garden had failed.
miles north of Eindhoven, in the Nij-
assault
if
5,000 others were killed or captured. Op-
mander, admitted as much, but he also
six
flawed vertical-envelopment tactics.
Even
said he believed that conditions
Germans, and
that Market-Garden's stra-
had rested on a foundation of
sequential rather than simultaneous,
presence of some Nazi tanks. Only one of
had been destroyed by fleeing
is
A
complete success despite the unexpected
six bridges
fact
to
hem began
team writ
The
tegic hopes
from Nijmegen, only about eight
was already too
Arnhem.
British at
But they could not quite hold out long
it
finger to the heavens, claiming bad
weather had prevented enough supplies
time expected.
enough; by the time the British tanks
of
tanks at Arnhem. Eisenhower,
and reinforcements from reaching the
scheduled forces were unable to join in
precarious Allied withdrawal from Arn-
textbook solution for combat in
number
and a stout defense but also by bad weather
gomery's two converging forces was the
a tank-infantry
also noted the difficul-
German
them. But the composition of Mont-
—
He
the British paratroopers encoun-
ties
tered in facing a surprising
ten miles away,
cities
to
northern bank of the Lower Rhine, had
vantage
tactical
intelligence.
was unreasonable
the tactical front was the width of
a single road.
glider-
off
and poor
it
expect a successful field-army assault
when and
of the 101st Airborne, cited
been plagued not only by German tanks
rived
the Allies did not quickly take
the embattled British
British paratroopers
could give the Germans a defensive adif
for near-
Airborne Division.
The
As a
forces seized intact, the better.
cities
have been unprotected. Maxwell Taylor,
a flawed concept
German
sites the
But
across the Maas and Waal rivers and be-
to destroy bridges in the Allies'
more crossing
sites.
minus
bridging equipment, amphibious vehi-
the
assigned crossing
commander
path required Horrocks to place ample
cles,
its
by September 20. Horrocks's tanks were
and take
the defenders from behind. In the
grabbing
tactics.
posed, since the
reserves; at
employment
German
rear
of air-
would
Rod Paschall editor, a
is
former
an
MHQ contributing
member
of the 101st
Airborne Division, and a graduate of the U.S.
Army Armor
School.
MHQ 89
That background, com-
sia in 1941.
bined with his gentlemanly air of quiet confidence, never failed to inspire in his
The black knight
men
a kind of loyalty
and determination that went be-
yond anything cers
By the end of the summer, one stubborn
old man, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, blocked the way to a quick Allied victory in the West.
—
Hitler's Nazi offi-
whom
for
displayed disdain
Rundstedt always
—could
ever quite
was never more true
achieve. This
than during the desperate
summer
when
of 1944,
late
Rundstedt's
brand of inspiration proved by Caleb Carr
more potent than
far
the vulgar
all
posturing of the Nazis.
much
But as
I On
September
1944, battle-weary
5,
and men of the Ger-
officers
maneuver, to
army
at the
War
time of World
embodied that
stedt also
German Rund-
II,
force's single
pull the badly
in front of
into a coherent line. Assisted by the
itself to
their headquarters in Arenberg,
strategic ineptitude of the Allied
For while Rundstedt always viewed the
Supreme Headquarters
activities of the
more than
month
of continuous retreat before
the punishing advance of those American, British,
and Canadian forces that
had broken out of Normandy
at the
end
of July, these soldiers of the Third Reich
reason for either optimism or
little
enthusiasm
—yet as they watched the up
car outside headquarters deliver
passenger, they found to cheer. Immediately
new sense
and
its
themselves
in
it
electrically, a
of confidence
swept
first
mauled Western Front
(a
debt that
Rundstedt always acknowledged), the Black Knight gave his Reich a
critical
greatest
willingness to prostitute
evil: its
the
mad schemes
of Adolf Hitler.
(whom he
Nazi party
missed as "brown
man
nonetheless served the
he accepted
moment's breath during September and
as fijhrer with notable loyalty.
October of 1944, and thus played a
were old-school Prussian
role in
vital
prolonging the war through the
winter and into the spring of 1945.
German army
at the
time of his arrival in Arenberg) Rundstedt hardly
natic
the model of youthful,
fit
There
who
officers
Ludwig Beck,
did not do so, of course:
Franz Haider, and Claus von Stauffen-
At sixty-nine (he was the oldest serving officer in the
dis-
with disgust, he
dirt")
fa-
heroism that the propagandists of
National Socialism had spent years
German con-
who some
berg were only a few of those ficed their careers
and
in
sacri-
cases
their lives in an attempt first to battle
and then
But such
to destroy Hitler.
were exceptional
in the
the 1930s and 1940s.
men
Germany army The
of
vast majority
through the troops around headquarters
drilling into the collective
and then, as word of the
arrival spread,
sciousness. Thin, ascetic, and self-depre-
commanders
Com-
cating, possessed of a wit that could be
their revulsion, swore allegiance to
through
units of Western
all
of officers, following the lead of senior like
Rundstedt, swallowed
mand's Army Group B to the north and
both entertaining and cutting, Rundstedt
Hitler,
Army Group G
was
path they knew to be suicidal. For six
to the south: Field
to
appearances the very model of
all
man whose
Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, known
the Prussian old school, a
throughout the German army as the
cestors had been warriors since the thir-
"Black Knight," had returned.
teenth century.
Rundstedt had angrily relinquished
command summer,
man
in the
after
West
earlier in the
arguments with the Ger-
command
how
Few men were more
an-
pro-
fessionally steeped in the philosophy of
German Great General
the Prussian and
had been molded by Scharn-
Staff that
and marched with him down a
years these
men
staved off that national
self-destruction with brilliant battlefield
—just
displays
as
Rundstedt would,
September and October
in
of 1944, cobble
together a defense of Germany's western frontier that
was almost miraculous. But
meet
horst and Gneisenau in the early nine-
in the
the Allied invasion; and since his depar-
teenth century and then modernized by
stedt's efforts,
the elder von Moltke during the last
vain, but a terrible betrayal of both the
decades of that century: Rundstedt was a
troops he led and the Prussian military
ture
high
German
over
to
fortunes had plummeted.
For the average German soldier, the
field
marshal's return marked the resurgence of hope, even in the face of
ing odds al in
—an
effect that
overwhelm-
no other gener-
the Reich could have produced.
Nor was that hope misplaced: weeks following
his return to
Rundstedt would use his
90
in-
Command
Moselle rivers. Exhausted by
MHQ
stinct for elastic defensive
an innate
up
pull
near the confluence of the Rhine and
had
spire his troops, along with
army's Western
man
watched a car
a
as he typified the
finest qualities of the
In the
command,
ability to in-
man who
military purist, a his Reich
and
basest and
for
most
whom
lived to serve
politics
distasteful of
was the
human
af-
He was also an adept operational leader who had played the key battlefield
fairs.
command
roles in the invasions of
Poland in 1939, France in 1940, and Rus-
end that defense,
like all
Rund-
would prove not only
in
code of which he was an inheritor.
How gon
of
could such an apparent paraall
German
that
was best
in
Prussian and
history arrive at such an in-
glorious fate?
The answer
lies
both in the Black
Knight's personal history and in the his-
tory of the
German army between 1914
and 1939 (two histories that were, of Born the
course, nearly one).
up
a coherent, effective line of defense.
Such
eldest son
a performance
years,
was not altogeth-
of a Prussian hussar in 1875, Karl
er surprising. Because of the country's
Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was the
location
scion of a family
whose male members
had fought wars both
home and
an army in miniature during the Weimar
back to the Aisne, where they drew
safely
—
tween various enemies
ically at a
Europe, be-
in the center of
one that was technologically ad-
vanced and capable of expanding dramat-
moment's notice should the
terms of the Versailles treaty ever be
— the predomi-
who was
nant military tenet of the Prussian and
crat
abroad for 700 years. One had cam-
German
gressive military theories,
paigned for William of Orange against
mobility, in defense as well as in offense.
lied for the successful
scheme on similar men: Rundstedt
at
re-
pudiated. Himself an old-school aristo-
general staffs had always been
Spain, another for Charles Stuart
By 1915 Rundstedt had begun
against England in the 1740s; and Rund-
absorb (and by the end of the war would
the
to fully
mold
nonetheless open to pro-
perfectly.
von Seeckt
re-
completion of his
Though an
fit '
infantry
war
openly espouse) the methods that sup-
officer,
except that of independence in 1813,
ported this tenet: an aversion to fixed for-
firmed disciple of mobility, in offense as
when
tifications
stedts
had served
in every Prussian
Rundstedt was, again, a con-
i
|
there was no male of age. Thus,
and a pronounced emphasis
there was never any doubt that Gerd
on mobile reserves, which could
would enter the
with overwhelming force
military. At his cadet
well as in defense:
and he therefore ap-
proached the work of the new prophets
strike
of mobile
at key spots
mechanized warfare
— Fuller
college one instructor rather sourly
rather than trying to fight along the en-
noted that Gerd was lebhaft, a term im-
tirety of a linear front.
plying both intellectual keenness and a
brought dramatic results as the Germans
certain willfulness: The first quality
struggled to defend
open and appreciative mind. And while he
themselves in 1918;
never became as
was a deeply con-
radical in his opin-
and Liddell Hart
These methods
in
England, de Gaulle in
France, and Guderian in his try
— with an
own coun-
j
\
,
\
i
;
;
'
marked him General
as a likely candidate for the
the second for effective
Staff,
field leadership.
Rundstedt excelled
in all
the examinations required to earn
enrollment
him
Kriegsakademie, the
at the
it
firming period for
ions as any of these
Rundstedt.
men, Rundstedt did
The victorious lies,
1914 he had so impressed his superiors
German
General
when World War I broke out he was made the chief of operations for a divi-
Staff the
embodi-
that
sion, the
which a
most distinguished duty
staff
major could
to
I
— as
did so
many
Wehrmacht
Hitler's
future leaders of
—
safely
behind the
seeing in the
ment
of
society, tried
to eradicate that or-
ganization in 1918, as well as reduce
German army
the
Staff officers, the brain trust of the Ger-
generally to what
man
amounted
army, were considered too valuable
on
battlefield service.)
But
sev-
wartime experiences did presage Rundstedt's World War II field eral early
service,
many
and especially
in the late
his defense of Ger-
summer
of 1944. Thirty
years earlier, Major Rundstedt, assigned to the
22nd Reserve
Division,
became
re-
sponsible for the organization and mobilization of large
enced
soldiers.
numbers
Having done
of inexperiso,
he chart-
stabulary
to a con-
force.
They had not reck-
Four hard years
oned, however, on
separate the force-
the resourcefulness
ful general of a
and determination of the
German
offi-
(above) from the
defeated soldier
one
officer in partic-
ular:
interwar military
Germany's
Known
Mame. During the retreat from that fateful river, the commander of the 22nd was
forces.
wounded, and Rundstedt stepped
cause of both his
performance that was by cool, carefully planned,
of his
World War
II
Nuremberg
von Seeckt, architect of
In a
testifying at
General Hans
ed the division's advance through
in.
tri-
umphant Reich
cer corps, and of
Aachen, into Belgium, and
finally to the
as
"the Sphinx" be-
1945
in
(right).
Rundstedt's refusal to
acknowledge the political disaster
that Hitler
had
brought to Ger-
reports as
impassivity and the
many helped to
and daring as any
shielded nature of
prolong the agony
von
of war for several
Seeckt constructed
long months.
all
exploits (albeit
on a
smaller scale), Rundstedt got his division
new
nearly
front lines doing staff work. (General
to waste
tion of a very
every evil in Ger-
man
aspire.
Rundstedt spent most of World War
favor the construc-
Al-
General Staffs training center, and by
his dealings,
MHQ 91
Before the
views a
Normandy
map
invasion, Rundstedt examines the "Atlantic Wall" (left)
and
with aides (above). Hitler's failure to commit to either Rundstedt's
preference for mobile response or Rommel's plan for static defense ensured defeat.
being above political factionalism. This
became the
rule for
German
ing the interwar era, though
the revival of the Great General Staff
conflicted
and the rapid expansion of the German
it
armed
resoundingly with Prussian tradition. It
cal
had, after
all,
been the philosophi-
godfather of the Prussian army, Carl
is
pansion, snidely dismissing the Nazis
even as they ensured Hitler's ultimate
the elder Moltke had carefully trained
success. They overlooked disturbing
keen
signs that Hitler was beginning to ex-
interest in extramilitary affairs, particu-
ceed even those limits of behavior that
Prussian officers were
al-
the greatness of the nineteenth-century
ning to consider himself
Prussian system lay in the fact that this
partner than
was a new kind
officers
that took hold of
officer corps
during the
tradition, in
which
came
not the salvation
—and the transformation
many
officer corps into
his followers
lay
but the ultimate destruction of Ger-
tremism that characterized Weimar Ger-
No one saw
of the
the potential for such a
transformation more clearly than Adolf
nation rested not with any one of the
Hitler.
By appealing
its
army's
master.
On November the
in fact, beginless the
1,
1938, Rundstedt
army and what he
left
called "that pig-
sty Berlin" for the first time,
hoping
to
devote more time to his favorite extra-
military pursuit
— gardening.
however, was
from finished with the
old soldier.
far
Hitler,
The relationship between
these two diametrically opposed charac-
pawns, not masters.
to believe that the ultimate fate of the
to the innate na-
ters
is
crucial to
any understanding not
only of the
German prosecution
World War
but of Rundstedt's
II
life
of
and
Separated by an immense cultural,
tionalism and traditionalism of the Ger-
fate.
right that were jockeying for pov;er but
man
intellectual,
with the army
playing up the dangers posed by his
Rundstedt and Hitler were nonetheless
Communist
strangely
volatile political parties of the left
itself:
could be secured only to
if
Thus was born the
parteilichkeit
—
and
Germany's safety the
army chose
remain separate and aloof from
tics.
92
was therefore not a continuation
but a profound perversion of Prussian
terwar years. Because of the political ex-
many, von Seeckt and
MHQ
in-
—that he was.
teilichkeit
Uberparteilichkeit of von Seeckt and his
new philosophy
could be rationalized by Uberpar-
ways highly professional, to be sure; but
was not a narrow professionalism. The
German
head ever more
officer corps buried its
means; and certainly
kind of army in Germany, whose purpose
the
most progressive
declared a century earlier that war
larly politics.
only
forces along the
As the 1930s passed, the German
determinedly in the sand of military ex-
his General Staff officers to take a
of warfare: Blitzkrieg.
lines.
von Clausewitz, who had so forcefully policy, by different
Lightning war, however, was not the
the old imperial boundaries, along with
officers dur-
military establishment, and by
rivals, Hitler
was able
to
and philosophical
bound by the unusual
gulf,
defer-
poli-
convince the officer corps that his goals
ence that the fiihrer always displayed
ethic of Uber-
and theirs were the same: the restora-
ward the grand old man
literally,
the trait of
tion of a strong
Germany according
to
of the
to-
German
army. Hitler's pathological envy and
re-
— sentment class
of the Prussian military
— born out of
his
own bourgeois
—was infamous,
But the
results.
ability to defer to talent-
was one
ed, revolutionary subordinates
on
overexpansive course in Russia.
its
Only
at this point did the true extent of
and
the field marshal's underestimation of
was the bullying, dismissive way in which he treated most senior German officers. But toward Rundstedt and
while he did, like Hitler, urge a reorgani-
Adolf Hitler become clear: Rundstedt
Rundstedt alone Hitler consistently be-
purists,
haved with something of the respect
mentum endanger
Austrian background
as
of Rundstedt's strongest talents,
zational pause in the
that a corporal owes a field marshal.
There were many possible reasons this,
for
not least Rundstedt's determined
armored sweep
through France that angered the panzer he never
During the
let
first
any break
in the
mo-
had always assumed that the
fiihrer,
whatever his eccentricities, would agree
once
to negotiate peace with the Allies
was no longer the prophecy of
ultimate success.
defeat
part of the 1941 Bar-
pessimists but an unavoidable eventuali-
barossa campaign, Rundstedt's army
group again played the key
role,
and the
was informed
Instead, Rundstedt
ty.
through several
deranged ha-
typically
army-Nazi
peculiar relationship with Hitler re-
rangues by Hitler that the only solution
tensions to develop into an open breach:
mained harmonious. Rundstedt himself
to the
He
felt
refusal to allow any of the
consistently honored his oath to the
fijhrer,
even when he thought the
deeply pessimistic about the long-
range prospects of a war with Russia,
dangers facing Germany was in-
creased effort and heightened devotion.
There were
who,
few
at least a
German
began
offi-
foolish
but again he adopted an attitude that
or even unbalanced. But on the most
combined resigned compliance with
terms of removing Hitler forcefully:
basic level, one gets the feeling that in
Hitler's
ambitions and brilliant execu-
Their efforts culminated in several failed
Rundstedt Hitler encountered a persona
tion of his
younger man's military decisions
that,
though
radically different in type
and tone from powerful.
mune
to
own, was equally
his
And Rundstedt was not imsuch deference: He generally
exempted Hitler from the scathing
own
designated part in them.
Though he found
Hitler's ethnic policies
enough
in Russia objectionable
to war-
rant a letter of protest to the chief of the
General
Staff,
General Franz Haider,
cers
at this time,
to think in
assassination attempts, and finally Stauf-
bomb on
fenberg's near miss with a 20, 1944.
July
would not have been unrea-
It
sonable to expect Rundstedt, as the oldest,
most respected, and
many ways
in
wisest soldier in Germany, at least to
in-
Rundstedt did not follow Haider's lead
dictments he unleashed on other Nazi
by pursuing his disagreements with
heed the counsels of such
and high-command
Hitler to the point of open conflict.
there
genesis, the peculiar relationship be-
(Haider was destined to finish the war a
the contrary. Persistently citing his oath
tween Hitler and Rundstedt ensured
prisoner at Dachau.) But by the end of
of loyalty to Hitler, he stated at the time
November, even Rundstedt's pronounced fatalism could not keep him
as well as after the
its
leaders.
that the latter, despite his
Whatever
own
misgiv-
ings, always offered his services to the
Third Reich
when
called
on
to do so;
and those services were crucial
to Ger-
many's successes early in the war.
Before planning the invasion of Poland, Hitler asked Rundstedt to
come
back from retirement, and the Black Knight
—though aware
that the invasion
would likely precipitate a European war answered the call. It was Rundstedt's army group that played the key
—
role in that invasion in 1939,
stedt's
and Rund-
emphasis on improvisation and
mobility that turned that campaign from a
mere success
into a rout.
And
was Rundstedt's army group
again,
in the
from tangling with the
With the
Yet
officers.
no indication he ever did
—
quite
war that
to turn
against the fiihrer would have
marked
him
for all
time as a traitor to his coun-
Russian attack bogging down, Rund-
try. Certainly, as
stedt called for withdrawal to a defensi-
out 1943 to try to prepare for an Allied
ble line, perhaps as far back as the original jumping-off points.
When
in fact ordered a retreat in
his line, Hitler
Rundstedt
one sector of
reprimanded him,
which Rundstedt
to
acidly suggested that
perhaps Hitler ought to find another
commander
in
whom
he could place
greater faith. Hitler agreed, though cordially,
and
for the
stedt retired
Like the
it
West
fiihrer:
is
was
second time Rund-
from active
first,
this
short-lived. As
he continued through-
invasion of Europe, Rundstedt blocked
out
thought of
all
trated
politics
and concen-
on securing men and supplies
for
the task at hand: Uberparteilichkeit hav,
ing been the rationale by which he had
attained military greatness, release defeat
its
hold on the
came
Still,
man
would not even
when
into view.
by the end of 1943 Hitler had
become worried enough about Rund-
service.
second retirement
soon as the United
enthusiasm to send one of his
stedt's
vorites,
Erwin Rommel,
fa-
to oversee the
that first planned the unexpected strike
States entered the
December
construction of defenses along what the
through the Ardennes and then achieved
1941, Hitler realized that the possibility
fiihrer deludedly referred to as the "At-
the most miraculous results in that cam-
of
paign. Rundstedt himself was not re-
was dramatically magnified; he therefore
sponsible for the innovations behind
recalled Rundstedt to service in
these triumphs
—the
strategic plan
was
an
war
in
Allied invasion of western
1942 and appointed him
Europe
March
commander
in
lantic Wall." Ever the innovator iconoclast,
Rommel
and
—whom Rundstedt
considered "a brave man, and a very capable
commander
in small operations,
chief in the West. While he faithfully at-
but not really qualified for high com-
General Erich von Manstein, while the
tempted to organize an
mand"
tactics were General Heinz Guderian's
of his assigned area, Rundstedt conclud-
designed by his chief of
staff at that time,
effective defense
lies,
—quickly determined that the
when
they landed, should be
Al-
met
and during the campaign he was some-
ed in early 1943 that a
defeat
on the beaches and thrown back into
what unnerved by the magnitude
was certain
stayed
the sea. In effect, he was proposing the
of t"heir
if
the high
German command
MHQ 93
enforcement of an enormous linear
which naturally placed him
front,
in
conflict with Rundstedt's instinctive
philosophy of mobile defense. For his Rundstedt wished to keep as many
part,
forces as possible, and especially the
bulk of his armor, in a mobile reserve that could
meet the
wherever they
Allies
landed and engage them in a decisive
come
land battle after they had
The debate over the two 1944, but
it
strategies
went
chief of
mentritt, Rundstedt had great misgiv-
—but the
ings about this task
fact that
performed
There
is
it
significant.
he
is
a
own mounting wisdom of Uber-
hint in the affair that his uncertainties about the
parteilichkeit caused Rundstedt to react
who had
sternly to any officer courage to throw ly
cause the ordinarily reticent
concerning this period, revealing with unusual
clarity his pride in his
formance as well as
"The main task of Western at the
Rundstedt wrote with typical understatement, "was to stop the entire withdrawal
movement and
manded by
the front and the fighting in early Sep-
was faced by Bernard Montgomery's
re-
Rommel,
commander and
tember; his
own
later explanation
came back "simply because
that he
it
it
is
represented no small challenge: In the
Twenty-first
Army Group;
Army Group
G, under General Johannes
Hitler's
absurd
an inch
was thus simultaneously
from active command.
to
to the invading Allies contin-
make
ongoing
German
mockery
a
was forced
stedt
of Rundstedt's
efforts to establish a
strategic reserve;
mand and
and on July
we to
comGerman ef-
one of
Keitel,
what
franti-
"What
shall
shall
we do?"
which Rundstedt, exasperated beyond
patience, snapped, fools!
What
else
Keitel took the
who
"Make peace, you
can you do?" Of course,
remark straight to
in short order politely
formed Rundstedt that
make
it
a change at Western
Hitler,
known as much the sworn
well as Rundstedt
whom
fiihrer to
loyalty
had
how
very
they had
identified his
own
all
fate
with that of the German nation. Hitler
was prepared
and
to see every
German
citizen die before he
would accept
the end of the Third Reich surely suspected
if
and by not using
soldier
—Rundstedt
not knew as much,
his great popularity,
tles of
had been
lost to
such
existed almost solely
who had
on paper. German
heavy equipment behind
Belgium
would have opened a
to total victory,
line of
communica-
tion to Rundstedt had he requested
it),
France and
Dutch and German western borders that the Allies
knew
as the Siegfried line.
"
the 'West Wall,'
Rundstedt
later re-
called of Hitler's fantasy bulwark; for the
"was marked on the map, .
done or prepared
.
.
Nothing had been
for the defense of the
Rhine and the security of the crossings over the river." The Allied army groups,
in-
and by focusing instead on the purely
on the other hand, were
was time
to
military struggle, Rundstedt ensured for
and supplied and well positioned to
himself the hard judgment of history.
er a death thrust to the
Command.
But
in early
September 1944, military
Allied
considerations were the order of the day
and then
to the
at
German
counterattacks ordered by Hitler person-
Western Command, and
for at least a
few weeks Rundstedt and his able to
show the Western
men were
Allies a little
"I
can pass lightly over the inadequacy of
it
though committed
in
vaunted West Wall, the barrier along the
built.
lies,
caught,
approached Hitler's
as they
most part
every indication that the Al-
killed,
had been forced to leave most of their
but never
is
not been
but firmly
frontier, but suicidal
bat-
annihilation as the Falaise pocket
end (there
The weeks that Rundstedt spent away
German
in
groups were skeletons, in which entire
wisdom, and influence to avert such an
from the front saw not only the drive first to the Seine
were similar
The two German army
or overwhelmed by the urge to desert
high command,
do, Field Marshal,
only:
homeland; but none of them could have
changes on the German side of the war,
Hitler's toadies at
them
name
Rund-
1
one of the most famous ex-
cally squealed at Rundstedt,
lead
tional units, however,
troops
and Americans
Wilhelm
would
were
Omar Bradley's Army Group. These four opera-
Blaskowitz, was battling
capably in the final defense of their
from breaking out of Normandy were
Field Marshal
terribly misplaced. Certainly they
right to hope that he
and
justified
in the south.
mobile
to call the high
say that the latest
forts to stop the British
failing. In
duty as a soldier not to refuse at a
forces give
effects of that inva-
com-
was
divisions that
many
sion was Rundstedt's third retirement
B,
was
moment of the greatest danger." The immense joy with which the troops of the German Western Command greeted the field marshal's return
invasion.
Army Group
Field Marshal Walther Model,
Twelfth
ued
stabilize the front." This
north, Rundstedt's
discomfort apparently growing,
cal
my
ground
Command
the
by
Normandy
of
per-
men.
beginning of September, 1944,"
ensured an inadequate response to the
order that no
own
in that of his
return to the comparative simplicity of
Hitler satisfied neither
of the
mar-
small wonder that Rundstedt agreed to
Hitler's refusal to
serve and allotting the rest to
One
field
memorandums
shal later wrote several
now obviousWith his own ethi-
off the
mistaken doctrine.
derstand his reaction to this review be-
adopt either
first five
approach. By keeping some forces in
fully
line
deliv-
German home-
land along any one of a routes, the
equipped
number
most obvious being
of
either the
from Aachen, through the Ruhr, to
Berlin, or the "indirect approach"
from
the south, through the Saar and then
finally,
the assassination plot of
madness that followed
more of the brilliance that had made German domination of Europe such a
northward to the German
July 20. In the this last event,
Rundstedt once again
near thing. In his deceptively reserved
these options represented the Allies'
ally
and,
made himself available
capital.
Rundstedt believed that the
first
of
to Hitler, by over-
fashion, Rundstedt undertook a review
best chance for success; yet nothing that
seeing the military court that stripped
of the forces at his disposal, as well as
he or any other
implicated officers of their ranks and
those arrayed against him, upon taking
might have done early
command; and we
could have prevented such an operation
thus
94
General Gunther von Blu-
staff,
months of was ultimately made aca-
on through the demic by
ashore.
decrees of Nazi courts. According to his
made them
subject to the merciless
are able today to un-
German commander in
September
Allied
from being crowned with success, been undertaken ful
manner.
said,
"I
in a timely
iiad
it
and force-
in the
my
"always assumed that the Allies
would do everything
in their
power
to
of such operations
political
gust. In fact,
machinations of a
political
nature stood
liant generalship
machination responsible
Supreme Headquarters
the Allied
west over the Oder. What
armor clanks through a French
village in late 1944. Rundstedt's bril-
combined with
Al-
lied strategic confusion to slow the in-
vasion's advance to a crawl.
the "broad front" strategy worked out by
regard for 'western ideals' and to pre-
far to the
beyond
for the Allies' hesitancy was, of course,
reach Berlin before the Russians out of
vent the Russians from advancing too
is
knowledge."
The
had, of course," he later
way
ly
in
Au-
ordinated to such a move.
He was
op-
exact-
posed, however, by Bradley and the
the kind of decisive northern strike
American Third Army commander, George Patton, who pointed out that the American armies had moved more
Montgomery favored
that Rundstedt
wanted
all
was
anticipating,
and he
other Allied operations sub-
MHQ 95
— quickly and resolutely in their French
advantage; yet once again they failed to
resulting in a stalemate: an unthinkable
campaign than had Montgomery, and
press
result just a
the indirect route far-
German commanders found almost unnerving. "Why did the Allies not make use of this favor-
at the
ther to the south. Ultimately, Dwight D.
able opportunity at the time?" General
by then more resourceful
strate-
Blumentritt continued to ask after the
armies
war, never gaining a satisfactory answer.
Kurt Student time to consolidate
manders notably Hermann Balck, a young panzer general who took over Army Group G from General Blaskowitz at the end of September had made more and greater strides in patching to-
tween Rundstedt's and Rommel's ideas
the unbelievably resourceful assembly of
gether defensive forces west of the
had been; for had the Allied Supreme
his First
Headquarters pursued one bold thrust
the Fifteenth Army. These battle-tested
behind that
troops began to offer tough resistance to
but Hitler continued to forbid any such
Montgomery's
move; the
they stood a better chance of crippling
Germany through
Eisenhower decided that neither gy would receive priority;
all
would advance simultaneously. It
was
as disastrous a
Hitler's preinvasion failure to
into
Germany
—along
As
mistake as choose be-
either the north-
ern or the southern route
—the Germans
would have been incapable such a concentrated attack.
of resisting It is
hard to
was, the continued pause in Allied
it
operations in early September gave General
Parachute
Army
to the south of
forces, creating the im-
pression that the
German enemy was
Montgomery bought
ever cautious,
ruse and further slowed his advance.
war could have ended
lives lost
When one
both
tallies
war dragged on
up the
and inside
at the front
Germany during
Sep-
in
months that the not to mention the
the
—
physical destruction characterizing the
period
—one
is left
with an all-too-vivid
illustration of the costs of playing politics in the
So
midst of a military campaign. far as the
Black Knight was con-
far
stronger in the area than was the case;
guished analysts as Basil Liddell Hart that the
the
that
Montgomery began
in his area
to think in
terms of a massive surprise airborne
German
strike at the
than
rear, rather
earlier.
end of the month the
Throughout
city
fell;
but
German com-
—
—
Rhine. Rundstedt wished to withdraw river as quickly as possible,
marshal had to
field
himself with making sure that river crossings
it
satisfy
the
all
were adequately laced
when
a retreat
became imperative even
to Hitler,
with explosives, so that finally
Indeed, so impressive was the im-
promptu German defense
month
October the battle for Aachen raged, and
could be adequately covered.
By the end of October, Rundstedt's Indian
summer was coming
an end;
to
he had reason to be proud of his own forts, as well as
ef-
those of his soldiers.
a continued pressing at the front. This
Germany's western front had been
resulted in the infamous Operation
vaged by a combination of the genius of
Market-Garden on September
her western commanders, the energy of
17, a plan
that failed not least because perceptive
their troops,
German commanders
enemy
anticipated
(As
it.
sal-
and the dullness of their
leaders.
But
typically. Hitler
cerned, however, the Allied decision to
Blumentritt later wrote, on September
stepped in at this point to ensure that
forgo a decisive thrust provided the
17 "the weather was fine and sunny, be-
advantages gained by his generals in
chance he needed to regroup and
sides being a
war expe-
September and October would be negat-
try to
Sunday when,
as
face the Allies coherently. Conflict with
rience teaches, something often hap-
ed by one last bid for domination.
command came
pens!") Market-Garden's failure gave
October 26, the
Rundstedt enough time to reorganize
of the reaction he
another
the two field marshals themselves
Hitler and the high
quickly, for Rundstedt's first desire to
abandon Holland, which the
typically
demanded be held
was
fiihrer
at all costs.
But Rundstedt and his very able
lieu-
Fifth
critical defensive force, the
Panzer Army, under another able
subordinate. General Hasso von Man-
Through
new
willing to give wide latitude to able
attacks of the kind that Rundstedt had
army group and army commanders)
always advocated, Manteuffel eventually
Forest;
succeeded
and
began
to stray farther
at
from
the letter of their leader's instructions
than they ever had before: Holland was not abandoned by the
Army
Fifteenth
outright, but Rundstedt did devise
a clever plan by
that
German
army
— on
way
of
which most
of
the verge of being
trapped in the Antwerp area by the British
and Canadians
—pulled back
into
mobile counter-
in stabilizing the front be-
tween Army Groups B and G.
concern
to
Rundstedt was the north,
through which
his
Infantry Division had
—
marched
thirty
and
Schelde Estuary aboard small
because of the Allied Supreme Head-
craft.
Army now withdrawn toward
the east,
objective
buying time
would be Antwerp;
from the American, thus
for the
development of the
— — that would
new Nazi "wonder weapons"
The
own 22nd Reserve
years earlier
of the Fifteenth
its
purpose would be to separate the
and super-tanks
renew German hopes of victory.
the interior with a night crossing of the
Even with the bulk
its
began
Aachen. Because of
as long as possible,
quarters' refusal to allow Patton to
make
the decisive strike against Berlin from
however, the Allies continued to enjoy
the south, the
an enormous numerical and material
show
fall
campaign began
to
signs by the end of September of
told
staff
The location
rockets,
in the city of
—
would be the Ardennes
specifically the route to Berlin that
his determination to hold that city
On
afraid
would receive from
offensive in the West.
of the attack
British armies
But the area that remained of greatest
—perhaps
all
that he intended to launch a dramatic
teuffel.
skillful
fiihrer
Rundstedt and Model's chiefs of
tenants (as usual, the field marshal was
this point
96
a failure that the
argue with the contention of such distin-
tember 1944.
MHQ
it,
idea,
jets,
which would have been au-
dacious under other circumstances, was in the fall of
1944 merely deluded: Rund-
stedt himself stated at the time, "The entire
planning of this offensive strikes
as failing to ty."
meet the demands
Yet the Black Knight
forceful protest.
me
of reali-
made no more
The most he would
throughout November, was argue
do,
for a
The heat of battle receives
literal expression in
Ernst Widmann's searing depiction of a German flamethrower team fighting
against the Americans at Fort Driant, near Mets, in early
less
ambitious objective than Antwerp.
When
the Ardennes offensive was finally
launched in December, Rundstedt sim-
nating act of bravery and
—which,
the spectacle
to be called the
the Allies
and observed
wisdom would
sult,
the Black Knight remains one of
the great enigmas of the war, a
indeed been justified.
revered by his troops but, in the end,
It
never came. Rundstedt resigned
once more before the end of the war,
in
condemned by
history for his betrayal of
them. The richness of character that
March 1945, and was eventually taken
made him
prisoner and removed to Great Britain,
der was not sufficient to elevate
ironically,
—with bemused,
somewhat
where he would be placed
in solitary
a superb wartime
into the ranks of great leaders of
men;
and the inspiration that he fueled
in his
confinement
Could Rundstedt have taken any more forceful action? Probably not, as
being allowed to return home. At
soldiers only propelled
Nuremberg he
that, while heroic in their
command
for several years before
offered
testimony
were
in their essence futile at
(though he himself was never accused of
details,
ele-
best
But the idea of
gance that had marked his entire
life;
resonance through time of those acts
his
life).
mask
contacting the Allies and perhaps ar-
yet that style continued only to
ranging a surrender was
the deeper sense in which the Black
still
not out of
the question: As late as February 1945,
Knight had,
finally,
betrayed the most
and
and criminal
sacrifices has
that this
fought on; there
messages to the German side saying
the tradition that had produced him. As
fact that
less this
German was
— Rundstedt.
Doubt-
at heart a divisive tactic;
but Rundstedt was as respected and as legendary as he
among
his
Western enemies
had always been, and one culmi-
if
aware of this somewhere deep
soul,
Rundstedt
senior World
II
is
in
is
no way
case, yet he
a blackness in that chivalric.
in his
— almost alone among
War
As such, the
proved a hollow one.
would be the
fundamental principles of the class and
would accept surrender from
at worst.
Rundstedt had every way of knowing
were broadcasting
in fact, the Allies
only one
to acts
immediate
war crimes) with the same courtly
and possibly
that they
them
without losing his position
regards Hitler and the high is,
commanhim
came
"Rundstedt Offensive" by
bitter interest.
(not, that
man
have ensured that such admiration had
ply stood aside, turned over actual opera-
tional control to Model,
autumn 1944.
commanders on
Caleb Carr tor
is
an
MHQ contributing edi-
and the author most recently of The
both sides
—wrote no personal account
Devil Soldier. His novel The Alienist
of his
and service
will be
life
that led
up
in the quiet years
to his death in 1953. As a re-
this
published by
Random House
month.
97
FORGOnEN
[he
CAMPAIGN By
the
summer of 1944,
the
war
in Italyy once so
had degenerated into and sterile stalemate. But it was one that a Canadian painter, Lawren P. Harris, evoked and unforgettably. vividly
strategically promising,
a costly
—
by Ken McCormick and Hamilton Darby Perry
[hen Benito Mussolini's government was overthrown
July 1943, the
'in
Badoglio, began
new prime minister, Pietro
making clandestine attempts
to ne-
gotiate peace with the Allies. Hitler, rightfully suspi-
cious, occupied the Italian
mainland with German
troops to "assist" the Italians in repulsing the enemy. The Allies
regarded the conquest of
Italy as a logical first step in
their return to the Continent; but they did not envisage the
problems
in store for
them.
Following the conquest of Sicily that summer, Anglo-Ameri-
can forces invaded the ber
3,
The plan was all
mainland near Reggio on Septem-
Italian
then landed at Salerno and other places on September
9.
to apply equal pressure along a front that stretched
across the peninsula: Americans on the west, British Empire
troops and units from Nazi-overrun countries across the center of the line,
and Canadians along the Adriatic
By October
5,
the U.S.
coast.
Army had captured Naples and was
trying to break through the Winter Line, a massive defensive
system running from near Gaeta on the Mediterranean coast to
Ortona on the Adriatic. The advance slowed to a halt as the
weather worsened, but not before the Canadians captured Ortona. In January 1944, the Allies landed at Anzio, about thirty
miles below Rome. But lied forces
British Eighth
Winter Line
it
was not
until
May
—when inland
Al-
captured the Abbey of Monte Cassino and the
Army
crossed the Apennines and broke the
—that the bottled-up troops
at the
Anzio beach-
head were able to break out.
The advance then moved contested, with the
steadily but slowly north, fiercely
Germans
usually able to retreat from each
stout position to a carefully prepared diers
new
one. The Allied sol-
had a hard time measuring their own progress.
It
was a
Battleground before Ortona, 1944
MHQ 99
— numbing war
confusing,
that tended to be pushed into the
background of international awareness.
Rome. But two days
Allies liberated
later,
and determined force that included many
the
erans of North Africa and would eventually
Normandy was
the
muster
headline and Italy was old news, a forgotten campaign
one that had established an Allied foothold
—but
Europe, eased
in
was
to the Adriatic flank of the line
tona,
punch north,
knocked
oils
out of the war.
had been given no government, the
But with pressure from the Canadian
place.
Allies decided to include the 1st Division
Army.
Among
the Canadians
lieutenant pulled from his
war
for the
superb
was Lawren
P. Harris, a
combat tank unit
young
During most of his service tion
had
to be
was a smelly brown-black gumbo," Harris
said.
"And
sives
and death and assorted other disagreeable
well as fine historical reportage.
And
it
combines
interests in overlaying scenes of war's harsh reality
ing quality of
its
which has a haunt-
reality,
own. His unusual techniques and striking
compositions make the awful seem at
least bearable
—some-
Harris landed in Italy late in the
Canadian 5th Division attached
it
brought with
fall
suggestions. In the dry season the dust coated
everyone and everything.
your
ears,
—a tough
He knew he was supposed
the confusion of
The Lawren Harris paintings
an immediacy not possible to
reproduced here, photo-
achieve in
graphed by William Kent, are
or even motion pictures.
War Museum
Ottawa. Created by Lord
During World War cial
war
artists
from both
the military;
newspaper magnate and
details of
ish cabinet
member who esWar
II,
and
some depicted
life
on the home
front, while others
But his work also conveys
war that can
rarely be planned
maneuvers. Most of
Italy
been churned by three frustrated armies lied,
German, and
Italian.
The
last
was
had
—
Al-
dispirit-
ed and, before the campaign was over, forced offi-
were drawn
civilian life
Beaverbrook, a Canadian Brit-
photographs
still
on
to concentrate
men, guns, tanks, and airplanes going about
for in training or
the Canadian
It
jammed your
clogged your engines, and
their fatal business.
Art Collection of
got into your eyes,
It
your mouth and just floated there.
blurred your vision, garnished your food,
of 1943, joining the
Eighth Army
to the
Canadian War Museum
War
the smell of explo-
it
weapons."
times even poignantly beautiful.
in
in dust, rain,
death: "Seemingly always under-
foot
with a surprising suspension of that
in the
of
have
in Italy, his inspira-
found largely steeped
mud, snow, and
war
all
to paint scenes of
both the aims of the Canadian army's historical section and the
own
gray, beige
Sometimes he felt it could been done with a brown sketch pencil.
army. Harris's work has since been singled out as
art, as
artist's
and watercolors a black,
to
to render in
attrition.
and
the 1st Tank Brigade in the assault, as part of the British Eighth
was sent
that Harris
It
below Or-
where the Canadians were trying
the pressure on the Soviets on the Eastern Front, provided air
In the original plan for the invasion for Sicily, the Canadians
New
British, Canadian, Polish, Indian,
Zealand, Free French, and Free Greek units.
bases within range of previously unreachable targets, and Italy
vet-
4,
on June
Finally,
recorded
into no-win service
on both
sides. Harris's pic-
tures of the Allied advance, especially after
Rome was trails
of
show
taken, often
heavy German
fine
weather and exhaust
air activity. Flak bursts,
bombers, planes
fall,
smoke coming down. trademark," he
leaving a corkscrew
not
"It's
some
sort of
some
tablished the Canadian
frontline action in
Memorials program during
ror and beauty. Artists were
Allied press claims to the contrary, the Luftwaffe
World War
instructed to produce techni-
sive, intimidating,
cally accurate pictures,
advance
consists of
the collection
I,
works
illustrating
all its
hor-
but
Canadian military history
were seldom dictated by sub-
from
ject matter or technique.
earliest days to
contem-
porary United Nations peace-
The collection's tions of
best-
are illustra-
World War
I,
in
which Canadian casualties were very high: About 25,000
men were
lost at the
in
twen-
Somme
alone. Pictures by F.H. Var-
had an
of
until well after the
German
retreat
At the end of the war. Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander,
Eighth
Army commander,
visited
an exhibition of war paint-
ings in Canada. Alexander tried to say a polite
and Charles Comfort
artists present,
meant: Vapor
trails.
ings. Alexander's
Planes on
don, but Harris admits
One
fire, falling.
comment was it
Smoldering build-
not a rave in the Times of Lon-
was a kind of recognition.
of his best-known
—and perhaps most controversial
Jackson, showing the war's
the destruction of what they
pages 98-99).
most brutal
saw to paint
and a knocked-out German antitank gun, but also
struck
to
but
pictures
the public at the time with
in abstraction.
—iMura Brandon
was done outside an It
Italian
shows denuded
ably calm countryside, in the
town during
trees, a
manner
shot-up
battle (see
German
tank,
a reason-
of a Dali,
whose work
A
preliminary
Harris had seen and admired before the war.
100
word or two
Harris looked at the pictures, he realized what the general
who covered the Italian campaign along with Lawren Harris. Both Will
each of the
were sometimes moved by
effects,
the Allied
from Rome."
Maurice CuUen, and A.Y.
ley,
MHQ
was aggres-
down
slow
two other Canadian
on composi-
artists
Ogilvie
lethal in trying to
can be seen in the
effect
tion. This
work
—
and
insists. "In spite of
when he approached Harris's work, a sign of recognition came to his face, and he said, "Ah! You're the one who knows how to paint the smoke." When
tieth-century art certainly
keeping missions.
known works
New movements
artistic
After breaking through
Melfa River Crossing, 1946
the Hitler Line, Canadi-
an tankers of the ish
were angry. Hurt. Almost as
Brit-
Columbia Dragoons
it
there myself. Well, thank
if I
had
killed the
God Canadians
animal and put
are humanists. Yet
was surprised. But then people should be
irate
forded the river at an
I
improbable spot, going
thing and everything that gets destroyed by war.
behind the German de-
rarely leaves
you
When Lawren
fenders. Harris water-
in
about any-
A
battlefield
good cheer."
Harris retired from commercial painting in
colored a powerful
the 1970s, he was recognized as one of Canada's greatest por-
image of serene coun-
traitists.
tryside
His abstract works are held in notable collections
from the National and the Beaverbrook
and plane
the Hirshhorn Collection in Washington, D.C.
1944
from the ground outside Ortona
it
battle,
then redid
in his studio (left) as
the oil painting above.
Canada
galleries in
wreckage at the May
It's
a long
to
way
—when his easel was his
knees, his studio was a tank, and the Forgotten
Campaign
needed a champion
might not
to paint the pictures that others
have known were there. watercolor did not show the controversial element to come.
had moved a dead horse into the picture
—
"I
a tragically abun-
Ken McCormick and Hamilton Darby Perry
dant item on Italian battlefields in a so-called mechanized war.
Images of War: The
People seeing the painting later at an exhibition in Canada
by Orion Books (1990).
Artist's Vision
are the editors of
of World War
II,
published
MHQ 101
-it^
m #
'
%
Coast Road before Ortona, 1945
MHQ 102
m
Dogfight off Ortona, 1945
Turning Germany's Adriatic Flank Having trained as a tanl( officer, Harris often
come message: Unable
turned to scenes of tanl(s, traclced vehicles, and
would never return. "See how the breakwater
tlie
—making
paraphernalia that supported them
(above) has been breached at intervals of 100 feet
—
sure to "get the mechanical stuff right," as his su-
or so
periors insisted. The Bailey bridges that
of it?
gineers could build on
demand
army en-
inspired him to
would
coast road
and
that replaced a viaduct blown up
by the Germans. The antiaircraft bursts above Or-
tona harbor
in
the painting's background testify to
repeated Luftwaffe attempts to destroy the
vital
route fronting the Adriatic. The destruction of ian
towns by the retreating Germans
left
like
some
giant whale had taken bites out
Now the sea
could
come
in
and destroy a
safe anchorage," Harris pointed out. "The harbor
paint the 170-foot span on the Ortona-San Vito (left)
to counterattack, they
Ital-
silt
little
up and be ruined for the local fisherman coastal freighters. And note the figures
on the beach: They have mine detectors. The Ger-
mans bragged about
sparing Florence. But they
wanted these people
to suffer for half a dozen
years.
A
forgotten campaign? Not for the Italians."
one wel-
103
Medium Gun
Position,
1945
Breaking the Hitler Line In
1944, every German retreat meant more
towns and defense
lines to assault. After
the Allies broke the Winter Line, the Ger-
mans simply
fell
back to a new position,
the Hitler Line. At least the terrain facing the Canadians in the spring and
promised some
relief to
summer
armored troops as
they broke into stretches of "good tank
air
crews were
first to
say the German
first-rate," Harris said. "I
painted our antiaircraft trying to reach
them because plenty
of
German planes
were up there. And giving us the devil." The camouflaged battery (above) huddles
of
medium guns among
slim security
in
blasted trees that might confuse aerial
country." In Harris's painting of a night
observers. German pilots, Harris said,
attack on the Hitler Line
were instructed
(right), flares ex-
pose the tank columns, which respond with tracers, and tank their vehicles
commanders con
"unbuttoned" (with heads
outside the turret).
In
the background, an
antiaircraft gunner fires skyward. "Our
104
airmen were the
tivity
to harass
any military ac-
they could detect. And they did. "To
judge from what
I
heard, German
gence knew the movement
intelli-
of Allied units,
numbers, and even the names of individual Allied airmen."
Night Air Attack before the Hitler Line, 1945
MHQ 105
?^\.
'.
Section of the Hitler Line, 1944
MHQ 106
Hitler Line Barrage,
1944
Advance and Aftermath Harris
was repeatedly touched by the
from one of their own tanks;
it
had
devastated Italian civilians who wan-
done the damage. But then
dered into one fight trying to escape
almost too peaceful. The
another. They frequently appear
chattering, ignoring the dead Ger-
in his
pictures trudging through the wreck-
age.
"We
felt sorry for
sometimes "But
we
them and
tried to help,"
he recalled.
generally couldn't connect
No wonder." The picture
was painted
at left
after the Allies breached
the Hitler Line. Under a cheering sun, a group of
women
harvests grain, im-
pervious to the two dead Germans.
women were
debris of war. But the
In
tainly
commanded my attention. So in. It was the only sa-
lute
I
could give them. They probably
thought they were fighting for the best cause, just as
we
did." Harris's
painting of a self-propelled gun opening up against the Hitler Line (above)
hints at the exacting imprecision of
modern warfare. The gunner
Canadian tanks, units
firing
regiment
i
painted them
the background are the remains of of the
looked
presence of the poor fellows had cer-
with them. They were numbed, suspicious.
mans and the
it
is likely
on some tightly expressed co-
called Lord Strathcona's Horse, that
ordinates furnished by a forward
were caught
observation officer. But the striking
in
the open.
"I
had
thought to leave the Germans out of
point could just as easily be a
the picture," Harris said, "concen-
farmer's barn as an
women, the wrecked tanks, and a German gun salvaged
despite the two red-and-white aiming
trating on the
enemy
battery,
stakes used to check gun alignment.
107
l<9
MHQ 108
On
Rome
to
While the camouflaged tanks racing to
Rome
the spring of
in
1944 are the immediate focal point of the painting at
left,
they are not the only point.
Ruined buildings,
like the
Abbey of Monte Cassino in the background, symbolized the war most powerfully for Harris: "I began to 'collect' rough drawings of these buildings, then would insert them later into paintings that
seemed
to
need it. If you were a photographer and cut something out of
one picture to
other, everyone
the devil. But
strip into an-
would raise
we were allowed
assume that total destruction was a primary activity of the war. 'Wreck the other fellow's country.' Both sides certainly did a thorough job at
Monte
Cassino. The destruction of the abbey saddened me enor-
mously. ter the
I
went through
it
armies moved on.
seemed impossible then
afIt
that
it
could be rebuilt as skillfully as
has been done. The Poles with the 8th Army were particularly
courageous
in
the final assault
but, as
good Catholics, were saddened at what they helped destroy.
Some
of
my
paintings
were composited. But painted Cassino just as it stood. Or I
to 'interpret' like that. That's
one of the values of the artist's perspective.
fantasy, but
whole story
it
A
bit of
makes the
truer.
fell.
I
didn't
need
to
compose
an abstract picture.
Artillery
and bombs had done
all
that."
You might
Tank Advance, 1945
MHQ 109
^OST
EjrCHANGE
MHQ Tours and Seminars Enjoy the stimulating company of fellow MHQ subscribers while enriching your own knowledge of a variety of military -history topics. "Fiftieth Anniversary of
D-Day and
Paris,"
September 20-30, 1994 Relive one of the greatest invasions of
Omaha, Gold, and Juno. Follow the
all
time by walking the historic beaches of
Allied breakout
through the towns of Saint-
Mere-Eglise, Arromanches, and Saint-L6, and retrace the controversial envelop-
ment
at the Falaise gap.
Guided by prominent historian Williamson Murray,
Museum at
you'll also visit the
Participants will have time to view items of individual interest.
The tour follows
the Allied race to Paris, and includes a trip to Napoleon's spectacular Invalides
Invasion forces coming ashore on D-Day.
accommodations fasts,
tomb
at Les
and a gala farewell dinner.
Cost: $3,700 per person, double
occupancy $575); includes round-trip airfare
Memorial
Caen, as well as the American, Polish, and Canadian cemeteries.
(single
on Air France from New York
in first-class hotels, all
supplement
to Paris, nine nights'
ground transportation, continental break-
three lunches, three dinners, welcoming reception, admissions, pretrip notes
and guidelines, and
For a complete
all
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and basic
gratuities.
our travel coordinator for
itinerary, contact
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this event:
Chase
NW, Washington,
D.C.
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'Lee's Invasion of Maryland,"
October 20-23, 1994
Join
MHQ and host Sam Gardiner for an in-depth, on-site look at one of the most deci-
sive
campaigns of the
Civil
War. The Lost Order resulted
war, and Robert E. Lee's strategic loss
meant the end
in the bloodiest
day of the
of his 1862 invasion of the North.
Tour highlights include South Mountain, Turner's Gap, Crampton's Gap, Fox's Gap, Harpers Ferry, and the Antietam battlefield. Colonel Gardiner, an expert on strategy
who
teaches at the National
War
College, will lead discussions during
lunch and after dinner. Interested participants
will receive
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research and present, ensuring lively group discussion. Cost: $950 per person, double occupancy (single supplement $100); includes
three nights' accommodations in a first-class hotel, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, lectures, admissions,
For a complete
itinerary, contact
4701 Willard Avenue, Chevy Chase,
all
and
our travel coordinator for
MD 20815;
Robert E. Lee, 1864.
local transportation,
gratuities. this event:
Marie B. Danch, Danch
& Abrams
Ltd., Suite 1715,
301-951-0855.
D-Day Anniversary Events Numerous
officially
sponsored
activities
Allied invasion of France, at the beaches
have been scheduled for June
on the Normandy
coast.
These
6,
1994, to
•
A
•
Dedication of the Eisenhower statue at Bayeux.
•
Completion of the U.S. Armed Forces Memorial Garden
•
Dedication of the Wall of Liberty at Caen. (For information on inscribing the
re-creation of the invasion by French, Canadian. British, and
theater of operations, call the Battle of
For further information on
at
the
fiftieth
American paratroops.
at
name
of a veteran of
World War
110
II's
European
800-WW2-VETS.)
mark the anniversary
of D-Day, write;
Department
of Defense, 50th Anniversary
and WWII Commemorative Committee, 1213 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 702, Crystal Gateway No. (attention; Public Affairs).
anniversary of the
Caen.
Normandy Foundation
official activities to
commemorate
activities include;
4,
Arlington,
VA 22202
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FUTURE ISSUES
Joseph T. Glatthaar war gaming, and how sometimes the games come true Richard Hall on the violent history of the Dixon Porter Joseph E. Persico on Portuguese Fort Jesus in Africa, an improbable saga of siege, suffering, and imperial vainglory James Warren on Colonel General Alfred Jodl, and whether a commander should be hanged for obeying criminal orders David Shears on Hitler's D-Day: Operation Sea Lion. With a portfolio of the uncommon bravery of Australians in Vietnam
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—
/IGHTING irORDS Terms from Military History by Christine
Ammer
This fourth column in a series examines words derived from World
A
number of expressions originating or closely associatWar II have become a permanent part of our language. Among them is D-Day, which has come to mean
the Luftwaffe's air raids over their country. After the war,
any day marking a significant event or circumstance. Al-
arena. In football,
though the expression originated
taking the offensive and directly charging the passer.
large
ed with World
World War
lied offensive in
forgotten.
I,
as a code for a particular Al-
that sense of
it
has been largely
was only with the long-awaited launching of Op-
It
eration Overlord on June
1944, that the term gained lasting
6,
importance. The "D" does not stand for anything other than "day," similar to the
The
"H"
command had
British
termath: strong and effective
long opposed opening a second
German
resistance.
They could
not forget Dunkirk, where just four years earlier an Allied
had been forced
force of 300,000
became both a noun and a verb used
and rapidly successful campaign, it
for
any intensive
business or any other
in
has the special meaning of the defense
Meanwhile, British airmen had been inflicting immense
damage on enemy
cities,
that originated as an
man
Germans' flak
despite the
acronym
of
—
a
word
Fliegerabwehrkanone, Ger-
for antiaircraft fire; after the
war
it
was extended
mean
to
to flee the
Continent by
meant any huge
In peacetime, blockbuster has cially a lavishly
sea.
bomb
Force coined the word blockbuster, for a heavy
was
that
strong enough to break up blocks of building and pavement.
play, or
success, espe-
produced and heavily advertised book, movie,
brand-name product. Aviators
also coined the expres-
Ever since, Dunkirk has meant not just a hasty and complete
sion point of no return, for the place during a flight beyond
withdrawal, but a dire emergency calling for drastic measures.
which they would not have enough
The
British
wanted
to concentrate
on invading southern Eu-
was extended
to
mean any
fuel to return to base.
critical point
The growing American presence
Churchill described as attacking the soft underbelly of the Axis. After the war, this expression
has since been used to
mean
the
ubiquitous U.S.
Army jeep. A
in Britain included the
oped by the Willys-Overland Company,
ample, the homeless represent the soft underbelly of a
from the pronunciation of "G.P."
of Italy
had begun
in 1943,
beachhead on the mainland continued cially at
Anzio
World War
in 1944. This
city.
but establishing a
to prove difficult, espe-
term was associated with many
attempts to establish a secure position onshore. After the war it
was used
By
for
any solid foothold from which one can advance.
late 1943,
in Britain in
American troops and supplies were arriving
of 1941 had been
in blackout.
Although the
blitz,"
which plagued the British
throughout the spring of 1944. The blackout light sources
blitz
much worse, German bombers were now
conducting a "baby
from outside observation,
German bombers
to find their targets
to
— blocking
make
—was
in
it
all
harder for
acquired several other nicknames
—but
A
soldier
might have a
favorite
was an exceptionally
attractive
memory. The word
blitz
was
"blitz
Jeep
is
buggy" was a trademark
terrain.
girl,
and his morale
woman
—the leggy actress —whose
wall; now pinup can refer to an A Dear John was a letter from a wife or sweetheart back home telling the serviceman she would no longer wait for him. Later it was extended to mean
attractive person of either sex.
any notification of
a
romantic breakup.
D-Day took place despite widespread rumors that plied successively during the
to
a news-
"John's second serve
paper strike or military coup), as well as of consciousness of
name
Betty Grable was the most famous during the war
war
Hitler
was
to pilotless planes, robot
ous or clandestine item or
—or
rough
pinup
communications (such
as in fainting
its
could be undermined by receiving a Dear John. The former
bombs, rockets, and atomic bombs,
news blackout during
—
only jeep stuck. In civilian usage.
temporary extinguishments of other kinds, principally of as a
probably got
about to launch a devastating secret weapon. That term, ap-
wide use
throughout the war. The word has since been extended
one
it
"general-purpose" ve-
photograph was displayed on a
ever-growing numbers. The soldiers found
southern England shrouded
hicle). It
(for
for a four-wheel-drive car useful for
campaigns involving invasion from the sea and
II
a
quarter-ton all-purpose car devel-
weakest, most vulnerable part of anyone or anything; for ex-
The invasion
It
beyond which
decision or action cannot be reversed.
rope from North Africa, which Prime Minister Winston
is
mode
his secret
still
means any mysteri-
of powerful attack, as in
weapon."
a British
Ammer
a lexicographer
and author of more than a
shortening of the Nazi coinage Blitzkrieg, or "lightning war,"
Christine
applied to the Germans' rapid conquests of Poland, the
dozen books, including Fighting Words from War, Rebellion,
Benelux countries, and France. The British used the term
112
blitz
any severe criticism or opposition or abuse. The Royal Air
"H-Hour."
in
front in northern Europe, mainly because they feared the af-
MHQ
War II, including D-Day.
for
is
and Other Combative Capers
(Dell paperback, 1989).
.
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